Owner's Manual
by Kiki Cabou
Summary: This story gives whole new meaning to the phrase "pet convict."  It is satiric and complete.  Come on in.
1. Here Kitty

**The disclaimer: **I don't own WC.

**The work:** This is satire. For the uninitiated, that means I've written a seven-chapter joke to discuss something that's no joke at all.

**The reason this happened:**

On the show, Agent Ruiz used the phrase "pet convict." Peter Burke exasperatedly exclaimed to Neal Caffrey in the pilot episode, "You look like a cartoon." On FFN, Enfleurage left a highly articulate and very kind review to "Da Grass Is Rizz," commenting on the propensities of the White Collar characters – at least in fanfic – to coddle Neal "to the point where you wonder if he's a grown man or a spoiled house cat." And my Top Five list of Awesome Things on YouTube includes the sublime and hilarious antics of the "Simon's Cat" animated shorts. (If you haven't seen these little gems, you have to watch them. The most recent one with the snow and the nasty wasty bird? EPIC.)

So, with all of that swimming around in my head, I produced this. Have fun.

* * *

**OWNER'S MANUAL**

Peter and Elizabeth Burke were enjoying a leisurely breakfast of Sugar-O's one fine Saturday morning when the click-click of nails on the floor alerted them to Satchmo's presence. The fluffy golden lab was heading their way at a slower pace these days, but he was determined to get there. Peter looked up from his paper and smiled as the dog sidled up to him and sat down on his haunches. He patted him on the head.

"Good boy."

Elizabeth had been watching Satchmo, too. "You know, honey, I've been thinking. Maybe Satchmo might want a little friend. I mean, you work a lot, I work a lot ... I think he gets lonely sometimes."

Now Elizabeth had Peter's interest. He waited for her to continue.

"Maybe this friend could help us ... transition, too. For when Satchmo goes, eventually. He'll always be my baby, of course, but he's getting on in years, and well, when it happens, I just don't want us to be without."

It was a sensible idea. Peter agreed. "Okay. Well, what are you thinking? Another dog? Maybe a cat? Bird?"

"Well ... no. I was thinking about something more exotic."

"What, like an iguana?"

Elizabeth laughed. "No, honey. Not an iguana. I was thinking…" She licked her lips and went for it. "Maybe we could get a convict." Off Peter's exasperated snort, she argued, "Look, they have pretty good life spans, and they're supposed to be easy to train."

"Jesus," Peter muttered. "Honey, a convict is just ..." He shook his head. "It's not a good plan. Sure, you can train 'em, but it's a lot of responsibility! And worse, they're – they're all … unique. It's not like there's an owner's manual."

"Aside from the basic things, of course," Elizabeth said.

"Well yeah, of course. Ya gotta walk 'em, they need space, place to sleep, all that. And if we get a boy one, I mean, if we get a male, well, with the violent ones you have to do some kind of drug therapy or libido management so he doesn't …" he motioned at Elizabeth. "You know, get frisky. It's a whole … thing. And they're big, too." He sighed and scratched his head. "I think the only way we could do this is if we go non-violent."

"Oh, of course! We're not going to adopt an accused axe murderer," she agreed, happy that her husband was starting to get on-board with this. She'd just wanted a convict for so long, but considering Peter's profession, she'd been afraid to broach the subject. "Yes, absolutely, I meant non-violent."

"Hmm. And not a big one," Peter negotiated.

"Honey, please, there's no _room_ here for a big one! We can't have some four-hundred-pound thug named Tiny upending the kitchen every time he's hungry. No, I was thinking, you know," she measured about the size of a loaf of bread between her hands, "A small one. Taller than me, shorter than you. Maybe on the skinny side. What do you think?"

"Well … I suppose if we train him right, it could work. And you're thinking we should get a male. You're sure."

"Oh, definitely. Satchmo would handle it better."

Peter took a minute to consider this.

"All right," he agreed. "I'll go to Rikers next week when they have their adoption clinic. Do you wanna come with?"

"What day is it?"

"Saturday, 9 AM to 2 PM," Peter said.

Elizabeth slowly began to smile. So her husband had been considering this, too. Otherwise, how would he know such a specific fact? Maybe this had a better chance of working out than she thought. "Well, I want to go, but I'm working a wedding. Can you handle it alone?"

"Yeah, I think so. We've got our list of requirements. I'll just stick to it. Should be fine."

She counted herself the luckiest woman alive as she leaned across the small table and kissed him. "I love you. And now," she stood up, "I have to get ready to work a cocktail luncheon. Would you mind putting the dishes in the sink?"

"No problem."

She headed for the upstairs but spun around halfway across the wood floor. "I'm positive you'll come home with something nice. Just make sure he has his shots before you leave, okay?"

"Of course." He was delighted to see her so happy.

Elizabeth couldn't contain herself anymore. She flashed a pearly smile, waved her fists and jiggled as she did a little dance. "Yay!" She clapped her hands and trotted off. "I'll hit up Petco and see if I can find some cute toys. Oh, and we'll need to convict-proof the cabinets and stuff."

"I'll take care of it," he assured her. "Go on and get ready."

"Okay. … Again, I love you. This is going to be great!" And she headed up the stairs.

Peter leaned back in his chair and smiled as he gently scratched Satchmo behind the ears.

"What do you think, Satch? You ready for a partner in crime?"

Satchmo woofed quietly and lay his head on Peter's knee.

* * *

Seven days later, at eleven in the morning, Peter parked at Rikers Island Correctional Facility for the adoption clinic. He'd gotten something of a late start, and sighed as he filled out the initial paperwork, hoping they still had a reasonable selection. Once all the i's were dotted and the t's were crossed, he was led back to the holding areas to have a look around, pulling his coat more tightly to keep out the wind. They had the usual collection of large toughs and beady-eyed guys in the General Population pen. Feeling kind of silly, but determined to stick to the agreement, he bypassed those and wandered over to the Lesser Offences pen, full of pencil-necked embezzling accountants and other non-violent offenders. Everything in this cage was considerably less bulky (and thus a less manly choice) than what was available in the Gen Pop pen. Peter sighed and squashed an ugly suspicion that he'd be walking out of here with the subhuman equivalent of a shaved poodle.

A guard stood on duty nearby. He was a tall, hefty black guy with a well maintained scalp that outshone most bowling balls. "Um, 'scuse me," Peter said to him. "My wife and I are looking for a convict. Something small and friendly. Any suggestions?"

"Hmm," said the guard. He and Peter both looked in the cage. Most of the orange-suited convicts were grasping the bars, sniffing the air, shaking with excitement and wagging their imaginary tails, panting for freedom. "Well, these ones along the edge are definitely friendly, and none of the ones in this cage are very big." He slipped into the rest of the speech almost without thinking. "And all of these prisoners have been approved by the parole board and are due for release. Also, they have passed minimum health requirements and they can understand human speech, so there shouldn't be any communication problems." The guard shrugged. "My advice? Just have a look around and see what you connect with."

So Peter circled the cage. It was a reasonably large enclosure, about twenty feet by twenty feet, totally exposed to the nippy air, and made of iron bars. The roof of the cage was chicken wire and the lower half was reinforced with it. The floor was concrete. The panting, bar-grabbing cons circled with him as he moved around to check out the occupants of the cage, but he managed to see around the fawning crowd, and finally one con got him curious. It was making no effort to interact with anything else in the cage, huddled all by its lonesome in a corner with its knees drawn up to its chest, diamond patterns coming through where the arm and shoulders were pressed up against the chicken wire. Peter had always been a sucker for outsiders, so he threw the panting, whining crowd a few pieces of beef jerky to fight over. It worked. They cleared away from the corner he wanted, and he knelt down by the cage and investigated.

"Hey." He gently poked the convict in the back.

It startled out of its fetal position and blinked at him. The widest, prettiest, bluest eyes Peter had ever seen - aside from Elizabeth's, of course - met his. The con's beard was thick and snarled and dark, and its long brown hair was a wavy, messy, greasy mop. Its orange jumpsuit was dusty and it was obvious that aside from being underweight, it was tired and scared. It wasn't in good condition; by all rights Peter should have moved on. But something held him there long enough for the con to get slowly to its feet. It regarded Peter warily, and after a moment of sizing-up it must have found him acceptable, because it gripped the bars and bowed its shaggy head. Peter, without even thinking, reached through the bars and ruffled its hair, and a bond was formed. He motioned to the guard.

"I'll take this one," he said. "Is there a name? ... It's a guy, right? They're all male in here?"

"Yeah, they are. But I dunno what this one's called. I'll have to run his barcode once we extract him," the guard said. "It takes a while. I can get you a name before you leave, though." Peter nodded, and the guard pulled a catch-pole from his utility belt. He telescoped the pole-end to a safe, six-foot length and made the loop end about the size of a basketball.

"Oh, do you really need that?" Peter protested. "He looks pretty gentle. Looks kinda beat up, too. Come on, I'll just get him out."

"No, you can't do that. Regulations, sir," said the guard. "I'm sorry." He opened the barred door a crack. Tongue sticking out with the effort, he inserted the loop through the door very slowly and moved it towards the con. The con eyed the loop suspiciously as it headed for his wrist, and he stepped away. So the guard sighed, and made the loop even larger. The convict was puzzled at the loop, amazed that it had grown so big so fast, and batted at it curiously, jerking his head to watch it, even as it settled gently around his shoulders. Then with a zzzzzzip! the guard tightened the loop fast around his neck. Not so tight that it really choked him, but it was uncomfortable, and he wasn't going to escape.

The guard watched as his prisoner quivered in fear, and sighed. "Sir, you'd best step back. This part ain't pretty." And he tugged.

The convict flipped out.

Peter winced as he yowled and fought and twisted. His big blue eyes were almost demonically wide and he hissed and bared every single one of his perfectly white, straight teeth. He dug in his worn heels and made some impressive faces as he was dragged from the cage by his neck, until he fell and ended up being dragged along on his rear end. His death-grip on the pole was useless – the pressure around his neck wasn't going away. Peter, with some dismay, held the gate open just enough so that the convict could be extracted and shut it immediately after he was out, but beyond that he was not going to help the guard torture the poor thing. The con was still fighting, and now choking, from his position on the cement floor.

"Hey! Knock it off or I'll taze you!" the guard yelled.

"Rowrrr!" snarled the convict, and then he hissed at Peter, clearly in a panic and getting upset with the nearest person.

"Stop that, or I'll report you for abuse!" Peter shouted at the guard. "You're gonna strangle him!" The guard, surprised at the order, stopped pulling and Peter used the opportunity to grab the pole from him. He loosened the loop, releasing a little of the pressure on the convict's neck, and knelt down so they were face-to-face. The con gasped for air and hung his head. "Hey. Look at me." Peter raised the con's chin and met his eyes. "You have to calm down," he said.

The guard was flabbergasted. Talking to a con like a person? He didn't know what to make of this unusual technique, so he crossed his arms and watched.

"I know this isn't pleasant," Peter went on, "but you have to trust me. I'm not taking you to be hurt or killed. I'm taking you home. ... No, you stop growling. And no more hissing! If you're bad, then you go back in the cage, you understand? You let the man do his job." He put a hand on the con's skinny shoulder. "I know this is scary, but you're not doing it alone. I'll go with you. You think you can stand up?"

And the guard, mouth agape, watched a small miracle. After a few more seconds, the heaving slowed and the convict calmed down. Having managed this much, he blinked at Peter and proved that he understood Peter's question by slowly but surely staggering to his feet. He was wobbly, but he was upright.

"All right, there we go," Peter praised. He handed the pole back to the guard.

Still slightly in awe of Peter, the guard gave an experimental tug. The convict shuffled forward obediently, but he was shaking and exhausted from the fight, and it was obvious that he needed help to make it to the next station. So Peter took the con's left arm and pulled it over his shoulders, and got his other arm around the con's waist, saddened when he realized he could feel almost every bone under the skin. This one was going to need plenty of exercise, sleep, and good food to get him back up to fighting weight. And he'd need some prettying-up before he went home to Elle, or she might not agree with the choice. Peter wondered what this particular specimen would look like without the beard.

"Come on," he coaxed as they walked towards the PREA (pre-release evaluation area), the con stumbling doggedly along. "You'll be all right. I gotcha."

The PREA was a big bungalow, and as soon as they got inside and out of the wind, the guard led them over to a corner of the area that seemed to be nothing but stainless steel. A blond, bespectacled man in green scrubs stood there waiting for them, snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. "We got a customer?" he asked the guard cheerfully.

"Yep," said the guard, pulling the con forward almost faster than Peter could help him walk. "Goin' home with this guy."

"Hi," said Peter.

"Hi," said the doctor. "All right, well, let's get him up here so I can have a look."

The guard got the loop off, and with Peter's assistance the con noisily scrambled up onto the metal examination table, where he folded himself down on his forearms and shins like a Sphinx, and watched the doctor with his luminous eyes. The doctor seemed amused by this. He patted the con on the head and gently scratched him behind the ears. "Hey, who's a good boy, huh? Is it you? Is it _you_?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "I don't think he appreciates your tone," he said.

The con glared at the doctor and hissed, proving this hypothesis correct.

"Hey, I said no hissing!"

The con looked grumpily at Peter and then pointedly looked off into the distance.

"Are you _sulking_?" It was half annoyance, and half surprise. Peter hadn't known cons could do that.

"Sorry," the doctor said as he began a visual inspection and readied his stethoscope to have a listen. (The con was kind of fidgety, but Peter helped hold him still.) "Some habits are hard to break. I was a veterinarian for fifteen years. This is basically the same job, though. Most cons like it when you say that stuff. But every once in a while," he paused to squint through the small scope he'd put into his current patient's nostril, and then checked the other, "You get a smart one." He folded back the con's lips and got a look at his teeth. "Wow. His choppers are in really good shape. That'll be helpful. Most owners have to get dental care for their new peets, and that can get expensive."

"Peets?" Peter asked.

"Yep. You run 'People' and 'Pets' together, you get Peets. That's what these guys are," the doctor explained.

The con's clothes had to come off for the rest of the examination. After a traumatic and embarrassing few minutes, the doctor finally decided to give him a clean bill of health, and led him away so he could take a much-needed bath. Peter followed, uncomfortable with letting the con out of his sight, and his charge finally started to relax in the metal tub. He seemed content with the situation and let himself be scrubbed pink all over with a rough washcloth and soap. But only by Peter. He wouldn't let the doctor get anywhere near him, and kept batting him away.

Peter took a weird sort of pride in this choice, and bent to his task with aplomb. He cleaned out almost a flowerbed of dirt from behind his new con's ears while the con raptly stalked some soap bubbles as they drifted across the surface of the water. He pawed at them, finally slapped one to pieces, and raised his fists with a triumphant little "Rowr!" Once he was completely clean, hair and all, Peter helped him out of the tub and grabbed a scratchy prison-issue towel. But before he could use it, the con shook every bit of his body vigorously, wiggling all of his limbs and sending water everywhere. Peter laughed as he used the towel as a shield.

Finally the con was warm and dry, dressed in gray slacks and loafers and a white t-shirt. They got him to perch on a stool so that the barber, a twenty-something Puerto Rican guy with fifteen minutes of experience and a faux hawk, could get the plastic drape over him and clean him up. Peter was a little afraid of what this kid was going to try; he stood by and watched. Fortunately, nothing crazy happened. The barber gave the con a nice short cut but kept the waves in his hair. And his beard was first shortened with scissors, then plastered over with spackle masquerading as shaving cream and expertly whisked off with a razor. The barber didn't use any electric tools. ("It scares 'em," he explained when Peter asked. "They don't like the sound.")

Just then the guard came back in, right as the barber was removing the drape.

"Hey, I ran his barcode. Got a name." Peter looked at him with interest. "Neal Caffrey."

Peter shrugged. "Okay."

He didn't recognize the name, and it wasn't important, anyway. Elizabeth would probably want to pick out a new one. He turned and got a pleasant surprise. Walking over to him with the barber at his elbow was the polar opposite of the con he'd met in the cage. This new version was gaunt yet handsome, slightly built with ropey forearms and hardworking hands, and he now had a very nice jaw line where the fluffy beard used to be. Peter smiled. The con – "Neal" – blinked and tried to mimic the gesture. He got his top lip to rise a little, and exposed a few teeth.

"Hey, look at you! You look good," Peter said. "So your name's Neal, huh? Hmm. It suits you. Come on. Let's get you vaccinated and then we can get out of here." He appraised his new pet's clothes. "Um, excuse me," he said to the barber. "Can you find him a jacket or something? It's chilly out there."

"Yeah, I think there are some clean pea coats in the back," the kid said. "I'll get one."

"Thanks. Come on, Neal. Or whatever Elizabeth decides your name is."

But he liked "Neal," he thought, so he'd see if he could convince her to stick with it. He took the con by the arm and slowly guided him back into the main area of the PREA. The doctor was already busy with another patient. A mother-daughter pair had just decided on one of the accountants, and he was sitting placidly on the exam table while the doctor shined a light in his eyes. A thickset nurse waved them over to a different station.

"Got everything in one needle," she said as she held it up, "And it goes in his arm. Have him turn his face away. I don't want to scare him."

The easiest way to achieve this was to pull Neal into an embrace, so Peter did that. The con stiffened at the shot and let out a choked "meow" into Peter's shoulder, but it was over quickly and as soon as the nurse slapped a band-aid on the site, the Puerto Rican kid came rushing over with a pea coat. Peter helped Neal into it, and then buttoned it when it was apparent that Neal's dexterity wasn't quite up to par.

"Okeedokee," said the nurse. "And now..." Neal stood there obediently as she hooked a thick black belt around his waist. A ring jutted out from the belt right over his belly. She hooked a leash into the ring, pulled it around so that the ring was in the back, and handed the other end of the leash to Peter. "There we go! You're ready to leave."

Peter raised an eyebrow. Neal, who had decided this place no longer held his interest, displayed all of his teeth in a wide, eye-scrunching, tongue-lolling yawn. He smacked his lips and Peter smirked. Then he looked back at the nurse. "Really?" he said, motioning at what he held.

"It's the law, sir. Unless he's in a confined space, he has to be on a leash."

"All right, whatever. Let's go, Neal. Come on." He didn't have to tug at all. Neal stayed by his side quietly, although as they walked towards the exit, he did something odd. Slowly but firmly, he put his hand into Peter's right front pants pocket. And then he drew it out. Put it in, drew it out. And then once again, but faster. Peter shelved it; he'd figure this out later. He gently took Neal's hand, put it into the pocket of his pea coat, and patted it. "Keep your hand in your own coat, okay?"

Neal nodded once. The motion was jerky. The bald guard accompanied them as they walked off past the holding areas, past reception, and out towards the gates. They stopped at the kiosk right near the parking lot, and the guard ducked inside to grab one last thing. Peter was feeling much better for not being inside the prison walls, and Neal couldn't stop turning his head. He was looking around at anything and everything. Cars, bushes, rocks, birds ... didn't matter what it was, it caught his attention. Peter waited impatiently for the guard to find what he needed. They were almost free!

Finally the guard came back out with one last form that required Peter's signature and handed it to him on a greasy clipboard. Peter signed with a flourish and handed it back. "You know, you did great back there," the guard said as he tore the back of the form and handed Peter a piece of pink triplicate. "You really have a way with criminals."

"Well, I ought to know something about 'em by now," Peter said with a smile, putting a hand on Neal's back to guide him to the car. "I'm an FBI agent. Come on, buddy, let's go home."

* * *

And so it begins. Hope you laughed, although if you want to get all deep-minded n' junk and respond to the subtextual commentary on the systematic dehumanization of the prison experience, then that's okay by me, too. Onward to the next chapter! (-:

This story is hereby dedicated to Enfleurage. If Neal's going to be treated like a pet in the fandom (realistically, this can't be stopped) then I might as well give all those coddling characters a good reason for it, right? (-; In all seriousness, thank you so much for the inspiration.

- Kiki


	2. Hiss Hiss, Bang Bang

Just driving away from the prison was an experience and a half. First, Neal had been afraid to get in the car. Then of course, once he was in the car, he'd stretched himself across the two front seats, ready for a nap, and hadn't moved until Peter pretended like he was going to sit on his face. Then Peter _started_ the car and had to pry Neal's fingers off the overhead panels and calm him down. And then, of course, once they were on their way and Neal was reasonably relaxed, Peter managed to successfully distract himself by talking to Neal and telling him the story of how he and Elizabeth met, and almost got them killed.

Thankfully, Peter drove a Taurus. The car squealed to a halt mere inches from the van in front of them. A taxi honked behind them. Neal was beside himself, frantically pawing at the passenger window and meowing loudly, trying to find a way out.

"Will you relax? Hey! Uh uh! Ssst Ssst! No!" Peter did several things at once: hit his hazard lights, kept his foot on the brake, cursed under his breath, and grabbed Neal's shoulder, because Neal was trying to stand up a little. He gently shoved Neal down into the seat on his haunches. Neal sat there quivering, ready to bolt.

"Settle down. See? Look at me. My hands are on 10 and 2, and my eyes are on the road. We're okay."

It took half a minute for this to sink in. Meanwhile, the light turned green. The taxi behind them eventually honked itself out and pulled around into another lane. The driver gave Peter the one-fingered salute. Peter paid no attention; he only had eyes for the con in the passenger seat. Finally, Neal sensed everything was okay. He stopped quivering and knocked his head against the passenger window with a little huff of relief. Peter pursed his lips, knocked off the hazard lights, and carefully drove on.

"Back seat drivers," Peter mumbled to himself.

They had to stop off at Petco before heading home because Peter needed to find some food for Neal. As soon as he put the car in park he looked over at his passenger. Somewhere along the way Neal had fallen asleep with his head knocked against the window, and any lingering annoyance was pushed out by affection. Neal was breathing deeply and drooling a little on the glass. Peter woke him up by ruffling his hair.

"Hey Neal, we're here. Come on."

Neal snapped awake and looked around. He pawed at the car door but couldn't figure out how to open it, so he waited until Peter took care of that. Peter grabbed the leash and led him in through the sliding glass doors. Neal stuck close as they walked, eyes wide and darting from object to object.

The store was overly air-conditioned, with an under-odor of sawdust, and every few seconds some vague announcement about a sale on hamster cages would come over the PA. They headed for the aisles of toys and chow, passing by the magazine racks near the cashiers. The latest issue of _Modern Dog_ was at eye level, right next to last month's _Con Fancy_, showing off the latest fall fashions. The store hadn't gotten this month's in yet, apparently. They turned down the main aisle and finally, after the "Bird" lane, Peter and Neal hung a left where the sign read "Felons."

"Non-Violent, Non-Violent," Peter mumbled as he searched the aisle for the appropriate food.

As the prison doctor had explained it, this was only a temporary arrangement until their new peet re-learned to metabolize and eat regular human food. Most cons completed the process in a couple of days, but some of the sicker ones could take weeks. In any case, they had to start Neal off easy. Topping out at 6 feet even and weighing in at a way-too-skinny 131 pounds, he would need a specialized kibble for a little while, to either augment his daily nutrition or replace it if he couldn't eat it.

"Ah, here we go."

Peter stopped at a towering display of Science Diet dry food. The number of choices was bewildering, and hardly any of them seemed appropriate. He grabbed a box of kibble about the size of a box of cereal and looked dubiously at the ridiculous picture. A nondescript white guy with perfect teeth, dressed in classic black and white prison stripes with a matching cap, was grinning at him and giving him a thumbs-up under the words: _Convict Chow by Science Diet. All Organic, High Protein, Weight Class 2. Feeds Cons from 120 to 140 pounds_. The food smelled like moldy cheese, and when Peter offered it to Neal for inspection, the convict sniffed it and snubbed it.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," he said. "I don't blame 'ya." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he kept scanning the choices. It was useless. This smelly stuff was the only thing appropriate for Neal and even though Peter didn't like the idea, he decided to take it. It was almost lunchtime. He felt his own stomach rumble; he'd forgotten breakfast.

Meanwhile, Neal was amusing himself by batting at a little cat toy that someone had accidentally left near the food. It was a dangly, flashy bundle of feathers and beads on the end of a metal stick. Peter watched Neal's behavior for a moment before he grabbed the toy off the shelf and dangled it in front of Neal's face. He wiggled it. Neal's eyes went wide and he went slightly nuts trying to cup his hands around the feathers and catch them. Peter smiled. Well, at least they'd found _one_ nice thing at Petco.

"All right, you know what, Neal? Let's go exploring. We need to find out what you like to eat. I bet you're running on empty in there, huh? Come on, let's go."

They made it to the register and paid for the toy and the kibble. Heading out into the chilly bright day outside, Peter narrowed his eyes at the Whole Foods market across the street and decided that would be their next stop. Unless the kibble somehow smelled better at home, and he seriously doubted it, then their next best bet was soft food. Once inside, Peter grabbed a cart and let Neal's nose lead the way. Neal made a beeline for the fish counter at the back and pawed at the glass divider between them and the rainbow of iced fish and shrimp. The fish man smiled at him.

"Mrowr?"

Neal's gaze was a little vague, but Peter assumed he was the one being addressed. "I don't know if you can have that right now. Although if we can do something soft … hmm. It might be worth a try. Excuse me," he said to the fish man, "I'll take two of those red snapper fillets, and two tilapia ones."

"Right away, sir."

Bizarrely, Neal led them from there to the cereal aisle. He slapped his hand against a box of flavored oatmeal. Peter could smell the apples and cinnamon from a foot away. He threw that into the cart and, just for the heck of it, held up a box of Multi-Grain Cheerios. Neal tried to grab it, which he took for a good sign. He threw that in the cart too.

And then, because the fish had given him an idea, he led Neal to the canned foods aisle. Peter had been friends with a lot of Jewish kids when he was growing up in Queens, and he'd been to his friend Harvey's house for a few Passover seders. And there wasn't anything in the universe, at least in his experience, softer or saltier or fattier or gooier than the food that Harvey loved to hate: gefilte fish.

He held up a glass jar of the stuff for Neal. Grey footballs of chopped fish floated unappetizingly in a gelatinous brine. Neal sniffed it … and purred. Jackpot. Peter took a second jar and put both in the cart. This wasn't a lot of food, but it would hold them for a little while, and he was sure that Elizabeth had probably gone out and bought some baby food, too. And if for some reason Neal threw everything up, they'd figure out some other way to make this work. It would be fine.

"Okay. Now, I need to find something to eat for lunch, or I'm going to pass out. Let's go."

Once they were back out on the street, Peter started looking around for the nearest hot dog vendor. Neal had apparently understood the word "lunch" pretty well, and tried to help.

"Rowr?" he asked, gesturing down the street at a small bistro.

"I just want something simple," said Peter.

"Rowr?" Neal gestured at the next restaurant down, an Italian place.

"That's a sit-down, Neal. We don't have time."

Neal strained against the leash to get Peter moving, and led them down the block to the next restaurant, an incredibly expensive sushi bar. Neal pointed inside.

"Mrowr?" He licked his chops and made his eyes get big.

Peter crossed his arms. He knew exactly why Neal wanted in: _he_ wanted some lunch too, and the smell of raw fish was intoxicating. But the price was ridiculous. "No."

Neal blinked, and pointed again. "Mrowr?"

"No," Peter repeated.

There was a pause. Then … Neal pointed again. "Mrowr?"

"NO. What is _up_ with you? Do you not understand the word?" Peter sliced the air like he was declaring a baseball player safe. "No. Nada. This is called 'a refusal.' You're not getting a three-figure sushi lunch. That's insane." Peter led him away. "Come on, let's go. I'll give you some of my hot dog if you're good, but that's it. … And no sulking."

Neal sulked anyway, despite the direct order, but Peter spotted a sandwich truck down at the end of the block and in his excitement he ignored Neal completely. He was almost giddy as he paid for a big pile of deviled ham on white bread and took a bite. Even though it wasn't Elizabeth's special recipe, he declared it heavenly and offered it to Neal, who took one wary sniff and made a face like he was about to toss a hairball. (The vendor laughed.) Peter figured that maybe the ham just smelled too complicated, so he handed the vendor an extra buck for a toasted hot dog bun with nothing inside it.

"Oh! Blasphemer!" the vendor joked, but handed the bun to Peter through the window. He'd seen the leash attached to Neal, and he understood. "There ya go, little buddy. Enjoy. Have a nice day, you two."

"Thanks," Peter said. "Come on, Neal." He held out the bun for him. "Have some. I bet you're hungry."

Neal made no move to take it in his hands, but gave it his complete attention as they walked away. Peter was struggling a little. He was holding a sandwich, a paper shopping bag, a leash and a hot dog bun, and between walking and keeping an eye on Neal, he ate his deviled ham a little carelessly. Before long there was a blob of mustard on his tie and crumbs on his jacket. Neal, in contrast, gnawed his simple meal to pieces with machine-like precision. Not a single molecule of food escaped his lips and teeth. Peter decided not to comment on this. And fortunately for both of them, he polished off his sandwich before they got back to the confined space of the car.

* * *

When they arrived at the house, Peter went in the door first and dropped the shopping next to the umbrella stand. Elizabeth came over to meet him, hands clasped, looking hopeful, with Satchmo trailing behind her. She'd just gotten back from working the wedding and looked especially lovely.

"So? Do you have a present for me?" she asked. She bit her bottom lip.

"Oh, do I ever," Peter answered proudly. "Elle, meet Neal." He reached behind his back, took Neal by the hand, and brought him around in front so Elizabeth could have a look.

She was momentarily struck dumb. Her mouth hung open. Then she recovered. "Oh. Oh, my God. Oh, Peter, he's _beautiful!_ Where did you find him?"

Peter grinned. "Rikers. Just sittin' there in a corner, waiting for me. So? I do good? Mommy like?"

"Oh." Elizabeth hurried to Peter and hugged him. She kissed him too, for good measure. "Oh, Mommy like very much. Wow." She turned back to Neal, who was trying to hide behind Peter. "I … I'm incoherent. I can't get over his hair. It's amazing! And look at that jawline! And that dancer's body! And those pretty blue eyes! This is just … wow. Oh, he's just incredible, Peter!"

Peter liked to see his wife babbling happily, mostly because she was so articulate the rest of the time. He dropped the leash and leaned over to pick up the food. "Well, I'm glad you like him. I think he likes you, too."

Elizabeth looked over to where Neal was now warily hugging the wall next to the door and looking for possible escape routes. She laughed. "I think he's a little frightened of me." She walked towards him slowly, arms out, eager to get her hands on him. "Honey, there's nothing to be afraid of. Welcome to our home. I'm Elizabeth."

She was within hugging distance when Peter closed the door. Most of the time, the door clicked shut gently if he gave it a little push and let it go, but it was a windy day. The breeze outside pulled the door shut suddenly with a loud "BANG" just as Elizabeth almost got her arms around Neal. He let out a "Rowr!" of fright and was off like a shot, leash trailing behind him, skittering into completely unfamiliar territory.

"Peter, you scared him!" Elizabeth scolded as they charged after him.

"I didn't mean it! It was the door! I guess he's not a fan of sudden noises."

They found him quickly. Neal was cowering under the dining room table and mewling. He'd folded himself down like a Sphinx again, and after vocalizing a few more times, he eyed both of them suspiciously.

"Neal, come on out," Peter commanded. "It's okay."

Neal hissed.

"Ah ah! What did I say? _What_ did I say!" (Neal glumly hung his head.) "I told him no hissing," Peter explained to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah, that'll help him! Jeez, Peter." She got down on the floor. "Poor baby, he must be terrified. So many new things at once. Oh, come here, sweet pea, it's all right."

Neal didn't move. Peter, embarrassed at the dressing-down, figured out how to redeem himself; he left and returned with the little toy from Petco.

"How funny," Elizabeth said as he handed it to her. "That's exactly what I picked out! Well, kind of. I didn't know what he was going to be like, so I got four different toys. He's into this?"

"Makes him go crazy," Peter said with a shrug. "Go ahead, wiggle it."

Elizabeth seated herself Indian-style about four feet away from the table, and started to flap the toy at him. If Neal wanted the toy, he was going to have to come out. Neal looked back and forth between Elizabeth and the wiggling toy several times, fighting with every atom of his being not to go for the toy and make himself vulnerable. Finally his resistance crumbled and he pounced on it. He caught the feathers and stiffened, waiting for something terrible to happen, but to his relief the woman wasn't attacking him. She was petting him right between his shoulders.

"There we go," she said softly. "You are so pretty, yes you are."

Peter was relieved and sat down in the nearest chair. Satchmo, meanwhile, had hung back a ways from this little scene, not so much threatened by the new arrival as totally baffled. His nose said "human," but the new pet's whacked-out behavior said "cat." He couldn't reconcile the two. He was curious enough to have a look though, and possibly a lick, so he padded over.

Elizabeth spotted him and smiled. "Oh, someone wants to say hi!" she said to Neal, who she'd somehow gotten half in her arms and half in her lap. "Hey, Satchmo, come here, babe." She held out a hand to her dog. "This is Neal. He's the newbie."

Satchmo trotted over to properly introduce himself; he put a paw on Neal's leg and started sniffing him. Neal froze and blinked. Satchmo licked Neal's face. Neal laid a hand on Satchmo's nose and sniffed him in return. They blinked at each other in mutual understanding, and Satchmo clambered off and went over to get an ear-scratch from Peter.

* * *

A few hours later, Peter and Elizabeth were enjoying spaghetti with homemade meatballs. Satchmo was noisily wolfing down his kibble, snarfing it like he hadn't seen food in days (patently untrue). Next to him, crouched on all fours, Neal was delicately eroding a bowl of Cheerios and gefilte fish. He stopped every so often to lick his lips clean and shoot Satchmo what could have been a glance of concern; the dog was eating awfully fast.

Satchmo finished his chow, guzzled some water, and then started eyeing _Neal's_ food. Curious to see what would happen, he tried to nose his way into the bowl. Neal narrowed his eyes at the dog and growled low in his throat, trying to protect his bowl with one hand. He knew he was at the bottom of the pecking order here, but no way was he going to starve.

Satchmo got the message and walked away, relatively unconcerned. He was a benevolent and gentle ruler, well-fed and comfortable, and assured of his high rank in the pack. He could afford to be generous. He would share this house. But the newbie needed to know how things worked around here, so after making sure Neal's eyes were on him, Satchmo slowly lumbered over to the table and rested his head on Elizabeth's knee. As soon as Elizabeth began to pet him, he turned and stared at Neal. _You can have anything you need here,_ Satchmo telegraphed, _but the humans belong to me._ Neal understood. He went back to his dinner.

* * *

The Burkes discovered a lot of interesting things about Neal that first week. Their initial discovery was that simple human food was all right, whether it made any sense in context or not. The Cheerios and gefilte fish dinner, for example, caused him no problems. Encouraged by this success, and still hungry, he lapped up half a cup of the baby food that Elizabeth had purchased and eagerly ate a small amount of string cheese and four little oyster crackers right out of her hand. She offered all of this as "dinner part two," determined to put a little meat on Neal's bones. But Peter had firmly insisted that they at least try to follow the doctor's orders, so they fed Neal some of the Petco kibble.

Neal held it together for about ten minutes and then was violently sick all over the floor. Included in the torrent of vomit was all the actual human food he'd been able to eat so far, including bits of the hot dog bun from lunch. Elizabeth was very upset. She took Neal upstairs to the bathroom to clean him up, and Peter was dispatched to take care of the mess, because it was really his fault.

He'd called the office earlier in the day and left a message for Hughes about the new pet situation. In the middle of mopping up the vomit, he got a telephone call from the man himself, agreeing to his plan of half-days in lieu of full-on Peet Leave for the initial ownership period, which was generally one week. Peter couldn't quite muster the appropriate enthusiasm. Hughes asked if his peet was all right.

"He should be just fine," Peter grumbled, as he scrubbed. "It's _me_ that's in the doghouse. I'll see you Monday, sir." And he hung up. As soon as the vomit was cleaned up, he took the bag of kibble from the kitchen and threw it in the garbage outside.

Peter and Elizabeth also discovered that Neal had been relatively well-trained by the prison. He wasn't aggressive or territorial, he was content to be bathed daily, and he knew how to control his bladder and bowels. He also knew how to use a human toilet, which he demonstrated right after he threw up that first night. Something in the kibble had made his sensitive system go haywire, and his body had decreed that all exits were open for business. Elizabeth felt terrible for him but also a little relieved at his response; she'd heard horror stories about cons being diapered for the rest of their lives, or being taken outside to do their business because their owners were too lazy to train them properly. She rubbed Neal's back in sympathy and helped him wash his hands at the sink, and thanked the powers that be for a peet who had something on the ball.

They discovered he really liked to play, and enjoyed toys. Anything stimulating and colorful was fair game. Squeaky toys intrigued him. The noise wasn't loud enough to frighten him, but they caught his interest and he liked to chase them. Peter could keep him entertained with a laser pointer and a wall (hours of fun trying to catch that dot!) or he would throw a fuzzy stuffed ball about the size of a basketball across the room and Neal would dart after it. Then he would toy with it like it was prey. If he was feeling particularly happy, he would flip on his back and bat it around.

They discovered that his sleeping habits were fairly regular, but they got a heck of an unpleasant shock the first night. Elizabeth thought Neal would like to sleep on the couch, so she'd set a few blankets down. But when she and Peter had come into the living room in their night clothes with the intention of helping Neal get ready for bed, and Peter said, "All right, bedtime," Neal horrified them by clumsily stripping naked and lying on the floor in a tense and very submissive posture, obviously waiting for pain.

The worst part of Neal's behavior wasn't the behavior itself, but the fact that he was responding on auto-pilot. It was Pavlovian. Ingrained. Routine.

They were appalled and responded instinctively, swaddling Neal in the blankets and carrying him upstairs to their bedroom. All the books said not to do this, no matter what, but they had to sleep, and they weren't about to leave him alone after a display like that. Neal was laid in the middle of the bed and sandwiched between them; Peter assured him quietly that no one was ever going to do that to him again. And when Peter woke in the morning, one hand holding Elizabeth's and the other cupping the back of Neal's head, he realized they'd done the right thing. Neal was curled up with his face against Peter's chest. His eyes were scrunched shut and he breathed softly. All of them had slept for eight hours straight.

In the nights that followed, they managed to train Neal to do the proper human bedtime thing: strip to his underwear, put on a shirt and sleep pants (Peter had to help him with this), brush his teeth (Peter or Elizabeth had to do this for him) and climb into the nest of blankets on the couch so that one or the other could tuck him in. As soon as this process was complete, Satchmo would show up, tail wagging, and clamber up on the couch so he could settle in next to Neal for warmth and company. Their sleeping arrangement became permanent.

* * *

By the end of the week, everyone in the Burke house was doing fine. Neal was eating and sleeping properly and getting along very well with Satchmo; things were going better than Peter had even hoped. They were enjoying a peaceful Sunday evening because Elizabeth didn't have an event tonight and Peter had no case at the moment. Dinner was over, the pajamas were on, the lamps were dim, and four faces were lit by the cool glow of Animal Planet on TV. Peter and Elizabeth shared a smile. Normally they'd be cuddling together on the couch, but at the moment they were about three feet apart. Dressed in a gray sweatshirt and matching pants, Neal was curled up between them on his side, hogging Peter's lap with his head and warming the soles of his socked feet against Elizabeth's hip. Satchmo had draped himself over Elizabeth like a furry blanket, and his eyelids were starting to droop.

The commercial break was just ending. "Animal Cops: Detroit" was back. Neal and Satchmo both perked up a little. Peter and Elizabeth weren't giving the program too much attention and spoke quietly over their heads.

"So are we still on for that Bureau Accommodation Dinner next week, or are you going to try and wiggle out of it?" she teased.

"Well, we can go, but we'd have to get a pet-sitter," Peter said. He absently petted Neal. He wasn't looking forward to leaving him and Satchmo with someone else. It wasn't separation anxiety, really. It was more like general concern for his home.

"That's true," Elizabeth agreed, and played with Neal's feet a little. She petted Satchmo with her free hand and looked back at the television. "Hey, speaking of pet-sitting, what are we going to do about tomorrow? You're going back to work full-time and I'll be out and about quite a lot. I can leave Satchmo with Sandy up the street, but Neal … well, he can't be alone."

"Yeah, I know," Peter said.

Neal had revealed an alarming amount of dexterity over the past few days, and he'd already managed to open a con-proof drawer in the kitchen. Granted it was by accident, and after the scolding he got from Peter, he wasn't about to try it again, but still, a curious con left unsupervised in a house full of potentially dangerous objects? Not a good idea. He'd have to think of a solution.

The TV distracted them both. One of the Animal Cops was standing outside a run-down tenement, asking a censored, blurry-faced woman about the number of cats she was hoarding, when suddenly the door of the neighboring building banged open. The shaky camera turned on this unexpected event as an ill-fed, unkempt man stumbled down the steps, barking and whining like a dog and frantically searching for some cover. A high chain-link fence surrounded the front yard; he wasn't going to find a hiding place there. Another man, dressed better than the first and holding a very large stick, jumped out the door after him and cornered him, yelling obscenities.

The tirade ended with, "Don't even know why I brought you home! And you stay the hell away from my Tracy, or it'll be 'snip snip, hooray,' you piece of garbage!"

The cornered man cowered and tried to protect himself. The man with the stick raised it high, ready to strike. Peter clamped a hand over Neal's eyes. Neal was confused; he started to fidget. "'Owr?"

"Shush." Peter winced as the man began to beat the tar out of his convict in plain view of the cameras and the Animal Cops rushed over to intervene. He had to change the channel, but he was weighed down by Neal and the remote wasn't where he left it. Elizabeth had the same thought, but she was buried under Satchmo. Everybody was nice and comfy and hopelessly stuck listening to the abuse on television as the animal control officers pulled the man away and tried to get the convict to safety. Peter swore under his breath. "Elle, do you have the remote?"

She was hunting fruitlessly. "Nope."

And then Neal, eyes still covered, freed one arm. The remote was in his clumsy grip. "Mowr?" he inquired.

Peter snatched it with an "Ah ha!" and changed the channel to Discovery. Once he saw that some beavers were swimming around, he took his hand off Neal's eyes. Neal blinked at the screen and Satchmo woofed at the beavers. "Good job." He scratched Neal's head gently.

Neal accepted this praise silently and snuggled a little deeper into Peter's lap. Peter blew out a breath and looked at Elizabeth. "Maybe we can just watch a basketball game next time. They won't mind, right?"

Elizabeth smiled. "I don't think so. But Neal stays ten feet away from the flat screen at all times. I don't need him trying to catch the ball and leaving fingerprints everywhere."

Peter nodded sagely. "No problem. So … you were asking what happens when I go back tomorrow."

"Right," said Elizabeth, remembering. "What do you plan to do?"

"Well, I think I'll take him with me," Peter said. "I mean, let's face it, he needs supervision, and the office is pretty friendly." Off Elizabeth's eyebrow raise, he sighed and came clean. "Look, Cruz and Jones either need pictures or a face-to-face, or they'll be after me with pitchforks. You know how they get!" Elizabeth crossed her arms and licked her lips. "Jones volunteers for the ASPCA, and Cruz has fish. I think they'll really like Neal. Besides, he should do well in any case. He likes people."

"He likes _us_," Elizabeth said, and Peter knew what she meant. "Just be careful with him, okay?"

Peter smiled at her as the beavers skittered and chuffed across the screen. "I will."


	3. Pretty Bird

Peter, true to his word, was careful, and the first three months of ownership slipped right by. On Monday morning two weeks before Christmas, he was alone at the breakfast table reading the newspaper in between bites of toast and sips of coffee. His index finger moved slowly down page 8 as he scanned the details under the headline: _Football Star Arrested in Con Fighting Ring_.

"Disgusting," he muttered, but then he looked up with a smile; his wife was coming in with their peet.

Elizabeth was dressed for work in her regular heels and dress, and as usual she'd prepared Neal for work, too. They had really turned him around. Peter was very proud of their efforts. The convict had once been gaunt and sickly, but thanks to Elizabeth feeding him plenty of good food and Peter taking him out for exercise all the time, he was now robust and healthy, lean and strong, weighing in at a solid 152 pounds. Today Elizabeth had artfully mussed his hair, carefully shaved his face, and dressed him up in black slacks, a white shirt with an open collar, and a warm blue sweater that hung on him perfectly. The color set off his eyes. "Preppy casual," as Elizabeth had figured out back in September, was clearly his look. Peter approved.

"Isn't this so cute?" Elizabeth said, straightening the sweater at his narrow waist. "I found it at Macy's. It's cashmere. You know, he still gets chilled sometimes, so I thought he might like it."

"Oh, I'm sure he does," Peter agreed on auto-pilot. "The shoes look good, too." Elizabeth had found him some nice black loafers.

"Don't they? Now remember, Neal, you slip them off when you get back home, okay? I don't want any tracks on the ceiling."

She meant it. Neal was affectionate and wonderful, but he was still prone to bouncing on the couch and haring off after imaginary objects when he got excited.

In fact, to an outsider it probably looked like the Burkes had adopted a complete wackadoo, because Neal did all sorts of crazy stuff. He hid in closets and leaped willy nilly into cardboard boxes, whether he fit inside them or not. He curled up on piles of warm laundry from the dryer. He watched birds like they held all of life's secrets. If Satchmo started barking, he'd start meowing. He would paw at himself behind one ear at about a thousand miles an hour, then shake himself off and wander away. He licked his wrists for reasons no one could figure out. He skittered behind the couch at any sudden bang. He climbed the furniture. He ate with his face. And because Elizabeth let him pick out the foods that he wanted, he happily gobbled up meals that were nutritionally helpful, but made no sense at all. (Steamed broccoli and a scoop of lemon sorbet. Apple cinnamon oatmeal and strip steak. Roasted turkey and strawberry yogurt. Cucumber, banana and artichoke salad, topped with Pace Picante Sauce. Peter had given up trying to understand it.)

He was also insatiably curious and got into everything, including Peter's briefcase and once, Elizabeth's purse. That little adventure ended with lipstick all over his shirt and he got a scolding. He was mischievous, too. He tangled himself up in Elizabeth's knitting yarn. He stepped all over Peter's paperwork. He got stuck in trees. He _almost_ batted down a bunch of doggie treats from the top of the refrigerator so that Satchmo could gleefully gorge himself (there were several attempts), but he was foiled by the formidable doyenne of Chateau d' Burke. And he stole anything that he deemed pretty and offered it to his owners as presents: flowers from the dining room table, cheap pens, left socks, rusted pennies, squeaky toys, and at least twice a week, the remote control.

"Yeah," Peter would sigh at the end of almost every Neal Story he'd tell Cruz and Jones. "He's crazy, but we love him."

* * *

Things at the FBI were going along swimmingly. Peter had first brought Neal to work back in September, and since then he'd become something of an office pet. But everyone in Peter's division marveled at how well Neal understood English and remembered faces, and so he'd been given simple responsibilities. As the Mail Con, with a satchel hanging at his hip, he would deliver inter-office documents within, to, and from the White Collar unit all day. It was the perfect job. He got to explore the whole building, everybody was always happy to see him, and someone always knew where he was. He didn't legally need to be on the leash because the building was a "confined space," and most importantly, with so many law enforcement officers keeping an eye on him, Peter knew Neal was safe. It was a total win-win.

That first day, though, he'd been an unknown quantity. Peter had deliberately driven them in very early and texted Cruz and Jones to show up so that they could meet him in private. Jones let Neal sniff him and asked some sensible questions so that he could get a memo out to the rest of the division, and Cruz got all her embarrassing kvelling out of the way with no witnesses. It was impossible to know it by looking at her, but Lauren Cruz, hard-ass FBI agent and all-around tough cookie, loved pets of all shapes and sizes. She could only keep fish, but that didn't stop her from carrying around treats in her purse. She fed Neal a little bit of yogurt trail mix, petted him until he purred, and declared him the cutest thing in all of creation. (This soft spot of hers was one of the many reasons Jones had a crush on her.)

Hughes had come in early just because he felt like it, and joined their small crowd. Unfortunately, he didn't know anything about cons and caused quite the kerfuffle by suddenly reaching for Neal's neck in search of non-existent ID tags. And Neal, sweet, loving, non-territorial Neal, tried to bite him.

That should have been a tip-off that he was doing something stupid, but Hughes didn't get it and he tried again. Neal bolted. He led them a merry dance through the office for a good two minutes, leaping from desktop to desktop, scattering papers and making a mess, until he finally clawed his way up a large filing cabinet, folded himself down on top of it, narrowed his eyes and hissed at all of them.

Peter had to coax him down while Cruz explained to Hughes what happened.

"You're never supposed to reach for a convict's neck, sir. It's the worst threat display they recognize. They freak out."

In the end, Peter handed Hughes a bite-size Hershey bar and convinced him to offer it to Neal, along with an apology. Neal nibbled it straight out of Hughes's hand, accidentally melted the man's heart in the process, and formed three strong alliances in less than ten minutes.

If anything, those alliances were bone-deep by now. When people were running Neal too ragged and he was tired, then he could count on Peter for an open door, a quiet spot behind his desk to snooze on the floor for a few minutes and, if Peter toed off one shoe, a good back-scratch with a foot. If people teased Neal out in the main work area, because some employees of the WCD weren't so thrilled about having a convict for an office pet, then Cruz or Jones was always ready to jump in and stop it. And if someone was foolish enough to complain to Reese Hughes that Neal had goofed up a delivery, which rarely happened, then the director would haul off and tell them that if they didn't like the way Neal did things, they might try getting off their asses and delivering their own mail.

So for Neal, work was fun. There was always something interesting to play with, new people to meow at, scratches to be had, and different places to explore. Plus, he had proven himself to be a very good courier, and people were handing him things and giving him directions without even thinking about it, these days. There were a few miscommunications of course, and once or twice Neal decided to ignore his orders and curl up in the break room for a four-hour nap, but overall, everybody agreed that he was generally faster (and much cuter!) than the regular inter-office mail delivery.

Today was a good day. While Peter and his team were upstairs trying to figure out how to crack a jewelry heist of a pink diamond, Neal was delivering paperwork to Missing Persons. He got a friendly pat from the woman that other people called Rice. He liked Rice. She was generally spoken of with awe and fear, but she was always nice to him, so he rubbed up against her and purred when she added a document to his satchel.

* * *

That evening, the Burkes were on the couch, talking over some after-dinner wine. There were no new leads in the pink diamond case yet, although Peter was thinking about interviewing some smart-ass named Tulane. Sipping at glass number two, he decided that he was somewhat off his game because he was halfway through a story about Jones and a squirt gun from the evidence locker before he realized that Elizabeth was staring at their living room's small Christmas tree, not paying attention at all, and looking angry.

"Uh, honey? Is everything all right?"

Elizabeth took a sip of wine. "No, not really. I'm sort of having a fight with Tamara."

"Your business partner?"

"Yeah. You know how I dress Neal all slick and cute to go in to work with you?"

"Uh huh …"

"Well, Tam's been bugging me about meeting Neal for months, so on Monday I took a picture of Neal and sent it to her. And she…" Elizabeth sighed and set her glass down on the coffee table. "She thought Neal was really incredible-looking, and he _is_, but she's been making these stupid comments all week. And I snapped today."

Peter took her hand. "What did she say?"

"She kept suggesting we force-breed Neal." Just the memory of the conversation made her bite her lip. "There's a reason that's been outlawed for ninety years. It still gets the death penalty in Texas, doesn't it?"

Peter nodded. "She say anything else?"

"Oh, yes. She told me to put him in a con show. She said he'd win every medal." They looked over at the Christmas tree where Neal was gently pawing at one of the ornaments, and Elizabeth leaned back against Peter. "Those things are _so_ horrible. I mean, they're just circuses. Stripping cons naked and leading them around in a circle by their necks? Their owners wax their rear ends and flat-iron their genital hair, for heaven's sake. It's revolting." She huffed out another sigh as he set his own glass down. "Anyway, we were discussing flower arrangements when she told me to do all this stuff, and then she asked me where she should put the carnations."

Peter furrowed his brow at this segue, but then it dawned on him, and he couldn't help but smile. "You told her exactly where she could put them, didn't you."

Elizabeth winced as she nodded. "And then I told her what I just told you, except, you know, louder. And I think I broke a vase. Anyway, we're only communicating through Julie and email until we both calm down." She put her face in her hands and moaned a little. "What a mess." Peter started to rub her shoulders. "It's just … Neal is as much my baby as Satchmo! Just the thought of doing those awful things to him is making me a little ill."

Peter kissed her neck. "Well, for what it's worth, if anybody tried to do that stuff to Neal, I'd kill them. I guess that's why we're peet parents, and Tamara isn't." He held his wife close for a moment. "She's not meeting Neal, is she?"

Elizabeth sniffed. "Not in a million years. Come on, we need to do the dishes."

* * *

Life with Neal, as Peter and Elizabeth discovered over those first three months, was fun and entertaining, but not without problems. For example, he got really sick a week before Thanksgiving. A hacking cough quickly turned into something more serious, and Neal went south very fast. (Convicts were prone to these kinds of nasty respiratory complaints, even after release, because of less-than-sanitary prison conditions.) Of course, the initial confusion was over whether Neal needed to see a doctor or a veterinarian. A receptionist settled the dispute by explaining that Dr. Reynolds, Peter's GP, did not treat convicts. There had been an "incident." She gave them the number of a highly recommended animal hospital in Brooklyn.

The place didn't have a full-time convict specialist on staff, but a former ER doctor moonlighted in that position fall through spring, so they were in luck. The doctor's name was Hank Lawson and he turned out to be gentle, professional, compassionate, and knowledgeable. Neal was sent home with powerful antibiotics and the twin orders of bed rest and chicken soup, and a week later he was feeling much better, but the whole thing was terrifying. The Burkes vowed to keep a closer eye on him from then on.

There was also the ongoing issue of Neal's insane behavior, which wasn't so much insanity as a biological disagreement. His brain told him he was a house cat while his body said, "Um, _no_," and his body was frequently ignored. Trouble was inevitable. There was the time early on in October when Peter took him to Central Park and let go of the leash by accident. Neal dashed off to chase a pigeon, and eventually cornered his cooing prey way out on a low-slung branch of a tree that overhung one of the park's small lakes. He pounced, missed, lost his distinctly un-cat-like balance, and fell in. Peter had to fish him out of the water. And because the pigeon escaped, Neal sulked for the rest of the afternoon.

There was also the leaping. Elizabeth and Peter jokingly called it "con parkour," but it turned more daring and dangerous the stronger Neal got, until he celebrated five weeks of living with them by kamikazeing into the dining room table from the top of a nearby bookshelf. By some miracle he wasn't hurt, but he broke the table in half and scared himself pretty badly, and the Burkes had to eat off a rickety card table for a week until Elizabeth found a suitable replacement.

So there was one upside to Neal getting so sick in November: it gave his owners some time to think. He was a great pet with a wonderful disposition, but they were scared that this built-in feline lunacy would either kill him or destroy their home, and neither outcome was acceptable. Fortunately, there were indoor con runs all over the city. While Neal drooled on the couch in a daze from the antibiotics, Peter and Elizabeth signed him up with one in mid-town. As soon as he had recovered, Peter started bringing him by after work. Soon they were showing up religiously for an hour or two every day.

"Peets Fifth Avenue" had a nice-sized romper room, really long hours, and a juice bar. Even better, with Peter's FBI discount, the membership fee was close to nominal. The place had a "no shoes, yes socks" policy and a hideous uniform of dull pink sweats with the words _DO NOT REMOVE FROM PEETS FIFTH AVENUE_ printed on the chest. The exercise space was a riot of bold colors, and it was chock full of fun things to climb on and play with. Hanging toys lit up and made noises, and at least a quarter of the room was nothing but ropes to swing on. There were also plenty of opportunities for social interaction, because the "after-work crowd" was about ten regulars strong.

Neal was a little timid at the beginning of the first visit, but after pawing and sniffing at the thick red floor mat a few times and deeming it safe to walk on, he was soon scurrying around, freezing behind giant foam towers to watch nothing, or muscling his way up the gigantic fake tree that was ringed with puffy "fall bags" in case of a missed branch. Peter was relieved. Neal could try all the crazy stunts he liked here because the place was nothing but padding, safety nets, and Lysol. Neal began to come home with just enough energy to eat a good dinner, get a post-run shower, maybe watch some TV before bed, and knock out. Most importantly, he was too tired for any extra-curricular, furniture-smashing flying leaps. Elizabeth was overjoyed.

* * *

One Thursday in early January, Peter and Neal came into the office a little late. Neal was wearing a new gray necktie with a matching pearl tie pin, a Christmas present from Elizabeth. Peter had tied it for him. (Neal and Satchmo had also received treats and toys, and Neal had spent his first Christmas with them frolicking in the piles of discarded wrapping paper around the tree and biting the heads off unsuspecting gingerbread men.)

"Hey," Peter said to Jones as he and Neal breezed by, heading for his office. "Sorry about that, there was a wait at the clinic. We got anything on our mini Gordon Geckos yet?"

Jones walked with them. "Not really. We're waiting for confirmation from Madison. Haven't heard anything." Then he frowned at Peter's companion. "What's up with Neal? He looks pretty jumpy."

Neal wasn't so much nervous as he as hyper-aware, looking all over the office like he'd never seen this place before.

"Oh, I just took him in for his booster shot," Peter explained. "It's a side-effect. Dr. Lawson said he'd settle down in a few hours."

They'd reached Peter's private office, and while Jones looked on, Peter set his stuff down, pressed a button to boot up his computer, and unhooked Neal's leash. He'd kept it on him a little longer today because Neal was jittery from the shot and kind of ADD at the moment; it was just safer. He didn't want him wandering off.

"Um…" Jones was still in the doorway, looking a little embarrassed. "Do you mind if I have a look? It's just, you know, I volunteer with animals on the weekends. I've seen this done before. I mean, I'm not saying the doctor did anything wrong, but if something got messed up, I'll know."

Peter smiled at the offer. "Sure. Neal? Come here."

It took some coaxing, but Peter eventually got Neal to bow his head, and he parted the short wavy hair at the very back. Jones had a look at Neal's neck. Right in the hollow between the tendons, just under the base of Neal's skull, there was a thin white scar, about an inch and a half long, over a fat square lump the size of a postage stamp.

"Site looks clean," Jones mumbled, and gently felt the lump. It was nice and squishy, another good sign. That meant that the plastic gel pack material was holding properly. "I don't feel any leaks. Straight injection, right?"

"Yeah, straight injection this time," Peter said as he typed in his password. "He used the vacuum needle to get a good seal on it. 'Course, in a few years we'll probably have to change out the whole thing, but it's very minor surgery."

"And this'll hold him for how long?"

Peter was tapping the desk, waiting for his email program to load. "Um, the doctor said it should keep him stable for another four months. We're supposed to check it in April. If the lump's getting flat, we have to go in immediately. You know, this technology is pretty amazing," he mused. "I guess I'm dating myself, but I remember when it used to be weekly injections. Now they have these time-release gel pack implants, and it's like he's a dishwasher, or something. Change the Jet Dry twice a year and you're good to go."

Jones released Neal and patted him on the head. "No kidding. Do you know when the initial mind-wipe was? Sometimes that needs to be re-done too, if the personality is particularly strong."

Just then, a small commotion on the main floor caught their eye.

"Oh. Looks like the liaison from the DC office is here. And is that...?" Peter trailed off.

Jones grinned. "He's got a peet, too! Nice!"

They went to see, and joined the few people who'd gathered at the glass doors to welcome the new arrivals. DC had sent an envoy to help with another case the department was working (it had nothing to do with Peter's Gordon Geckos) and the liaison was supposed to last about a week. The man holding the leash was slender and short, with brown hair and gray eyes. He was affable and pleasant, introducing himself as Agent Brian Sanders from the DC office, and shaking hands with the gathered crowd.

The member of the party _on_ the leash, to everyone's amusement, looked like he could probably take his owner out with one good punch. Everything about him said "aging jock." He was big and bulky, a ruddy-cheeked, slightly pockmarked con with beady eyes and thinning dirty-blond hair.

"So anyway, I'll be working with you all for a week," Sanders went on with a smile, and he motioned at his companion. "Oh yes, and this is Tweety. I didn't want to leave him alone while I was in New York, so I brought him with me."

Peter smirked at the peet's name. "Why do you call him that?"

"Well, he's a parrot," Sanders said. "Parrots are pretty rare, actually. I mean, you don't find a lot of birds among convicts other than stool pigeons, right?" He paused for a laugh that didn't come, and continued. "Anyway, I really like birds, but I really don't like cleaning cages, so I adopted him." He shrugged.

"He's housebroken?" asked Denehy, one of the sub-supervisors on the floor.

"Oh yeah! Tweety's amazing. I don't want to brag, but … oh screw it, yes I do. He's basically the perfect pet."

Cruz raised an eyebrow. "He's never tried to escape?"

"Not at all. I mean, it's not like he can fly away. Well, of course, he _thinks_ he can fly, but nothing happens. It's great. He just runs around the living room flapping his arms. Sometimes he likes to sit in trees and hang out, but that's about it. I don't have to clip his wings, or anyth –"

"Awk! Pretty bird!" said the con just then. His voice was rather deep, but he finished with a distinctly parrot-like whistle.

"Oh yeah," Sanders added, with a touch of pride. "And he talks."

Denehy was impressed. "Whoa. How many words does he know?"

"About twenty. And he mostly understands me, so we get along great." Sanders took out some shelled sunflower seeds from his pocket and began to feed them to his peet.

Jones and Cruz were on the perimeter of the crowd. He leaned into her and whispered, "Okay, I'm callin' it. That is _not_ a pretty bird."

"I'm with you," she returned. "Neal's way cuter."

All Peter could think was that "Tweety" was a pretty stupid name for such a large con. "Hey, Sanders, just out of curiosity, what was his name before you changed it?"

Tweety kept nibbing sunflower seeds out of Sanders's hand. It took the agent a second to recall. "Garrett Fowler," he said. "He was actually, if you can believe it, an agent with the Bureau. OPR. He worked out of my field office. When he got arrested it was pretty damn embarrassing, I can tell you. They got him on something insane, like fifty counts of obstruction and twice that many counts of blackmail. What about you, Agent Burke? I hear you have a pet convict yourself."

"Oh yeah, he's around here somewhere. Come to think of it, I should probably keep him away from yours," Peter said. "He's a …"

"ROWR!"

Neal sprang up from nowhere and nailed Tweety before anyone could react. He'd been stalking his prey for the past few minutes from the safety of a desk, crouched on all fours and licking his chops. He pinned the other con on the ground and started batting him in the face.

"… Cat," Peter finished, and ran over to pull them apart. "Neal, no! Bad! No, you get off him! Come on! … Come … ON!" He was yelling as he tugged.

"Bad con! Get off my bird!" Sanders shouted, also trying to separate them. "Come on, Tweety, fight him off! … Oh, for Christ's – you're _bigger_ than him, don't you see that? … Ow!"

Peter and Sanders kept getting hit while trying to get their peets away from each other, and the gathered crowd was no help; they were too busy laughing and cheering Neal on. Neal was straddled across Tweety's chest and meowing rhythmically as he slapped Tweety's face back and forth. All Tweety could do was chirp and whistle angrily, beat his arms like wings, and bonk Neal in the chest with his forehead a few times, like he was fighting with a beak. But Neal had the upper hand, and he was definitely winning until Peter finally pried him off.

With a toss and a shove, Neal was out of the arena and Peter was red-faced and cheesed. "Bad! Bad Neal! You _go_ to my office! Go!"

"Mowr?" Neal pleaded. He looked heartbroken at the dismissal, but not particularly repentant.

"No. Uh uh. You know the rules. No fighting with other peets. Go on." Peter pointed. Neal bowed his head and slunk away, trudging the walk of shame down the main aisle, up the stairs and into Peter's office, where he curled up behind the desk.

Peter sighed and straightened his jacket. "I'm so sorry about that," he said to Sanders. "It's – It's just the 'bird' thing. There's nothing we can do. Is Tweety okay?"

Sanders combed Tweety's mussed hair back down. "I think so. He's not bleeding or anything. Once every strand's back in place, he'll be fine. You all right there, big boy? Huh?" Tweety whistled hoarsely and bobbed his head. "Yeah, he's okay. So … is there someplace safe I can keep him while I'm working here?"

Peter thought for a moment about how Neal basically had the run of the entire field office, which meant that there was no guarantee this wouldn't happen again. He sighed. "Yeah. Your hotel room."

Sanders understood. "I'll see what I can do. By the way, what did you call your con? Neal?"

"Yes. Well, I mean, he _was_ called Neal Caffrey, but we just use his first name."

Sanders blinked at Peter for a moment. He even stopped petting Tweety, he was so surprised. "Neal Caffrey. _The_ Neal Caffrey?" Then he smiled. "Of course. I knew I recognized him from somewhere. Good job, man!"

Peter looked at him quizzically.

"Peter?"

He turned. Hughes was leaning on the glass railing of the upper deck. Peter's superior gave him the double-finger point, followed by the double-finger "C'mere."

"Uh oh," Peter said, wincing and realizing what Neal had just potentially done for inter-department cooperation. "That can't be good. Excuse me."

It turned out that Hughes wasn't calling Peter to the conference room to complain about the peet-fight, but to get him more involved with the investment fraud case. They needed to send in another undercover operative. Madison wasn't making much headway and the bad guys were getting suspicious. But even while Peter was nodding and accepting the role of a crooked CEO, his thoughts wandered back to Sanders's awe-struck reaction to Neal's full name.

At first, it seemed absurd. After so many months of living with the con, Neal was firmly fixed in his mind as a pet. But obviously Neal hadn't always been like this, and Peter was clearly missing something important, and that was not good.

It was time to do some research.

* * *

**A/N:**

In my head, I cast Sean Hayes as Agent Sanders. (I don't know why.)

And in case you read the parts about Neal going to the vet and went, "Wait a second. Hank Lawson?" Yes, _Royal Pains_ fans, it's that Hank Lawson. I had to throw him in there because he's so morally upright and smokin' hot. And I'll admit it, even if it gets me a boo-hiss: I like his idiot brother, too. Evan is super-cute. Sure, his head's up his ass most of the time, but at least his heart is in the right place. (-;

**Bonus Book Club Question**: Is Fowler better as a bird or a human being? Discuss.

Cheers,

Kiki


	4. Treed

About a week later at work, Peter accidentally sneaked up on Cruz and scared the crap out of her. He didn't mean to do it; he just had natural stealth capabilities and the carpet muffled his shoes. What had attracted him were her shaking shoulders. Her eyes were glued to her computer screen and she was snickering under her breath. He came up behind her. The volume was very low, but he could clearly see the grainy video that was making her laugh. A man in his forties, all decked out in white Bermuda shorts and a very loud blue Hawaiian shirt, sat at a keyboard. He was banging on it with his face and making tone clusters. The camera work was shaky because its operator was giggling. Then the man began to alternate between facial tone clusters and howling, and Peter's simple curiosity turned into morbid fascination. Was the guy drunk? Was this some bizarre performance art?

He asked at normal volume, almost directly in Cruz's ear, "The hell?"

Cruz let out a little shriek and it sent Peter stumbling backwards. (It was a classic Reverse Scare the Crap.) She turned around to him and mastered herself.

"I'm _so_ sorry," she said.

"It's all right," he said, laughing it off. "I scared you first." He nodded at the screen. "What is that? Some reject from America's Got Talent?"

Cruz raked her mouse around and clicked the pause button. "No, it's from YouTube. Jones sent me the link. Someone uploaded two minutes of their convict playing the piano, and it's gone viral. It's silly, but it's really cute. You want me to forward it to you?"

Peter licked his lips and slowly shook his head back and forth. "Nope, I'm good. Now close that nonsense. The paperwork on this mortgage fraud case isn't gonna do itself. Thanks to that crooked judge, we've got way too much to deal with."

Cruz, chastened, colored a little and shut off the video. "I know. I just needed a little break."

"I understand," Peter said quietly. And he did. It had been a pretty long week for everybody.

Just as he was about to trudge back to his own paper mountain, a small picture on Cruz's desk caught his eye. In the picture Cruz stood on a pier with the ocean behind her, and she had her arm around another woman. No, scratch that, she had her arm around a _mermaid_. Ivory skin, clear blue eyes, waist-length waterfall of curly blond hair … the only things missing were the fish tail and the sea scallop bra. Cruz was smiling brightly at the camera. The other woman was facing the camera too, but looking expressionlessly off to the left.

"Um, Cruz?" he said.

"Yes?"

He pointed at the picture. "Who's that?"

Cruz's reaction was not what he'd expected, given how happy she looked in the picture. She looked at him with a closed expression and said, "That's Morgan." And she didn't say another word. She just turned back to her paperwork and opened up the top folder.

Peter threw her a concerned look that she didn't see, but Jones, who was one desk over, had watched the whole thing. He just shook his head "no" at Peter, which Peter took to mean that he shouldn't ask any more questions and that Jones would be wandering into his office and explaining this fairly soon.

He left the bullpen and trotted up the stairs into his glass cage.

* * *

Meanwhile, Elizabeth was in the middle of an experiment. She'd convinced Peter to let Neal stay home with her today instead of going to the FBI with him, because she wanted to spend some time with Neal and she'd also seen an idea in her favorite home decor magazine that she'd been dying to try out. The dining room table was draped, the dining room floor was draped, _Neal_ was draped (because she wasn't about to clean stains off that cute polo shirt she'd found for him), and the 30 by 20 canvas was laid out on the table. Satchmo knew something messy was about to go down, so he quite sensibly watched the action from his doggy bed in the living room.

"Okay, Neal." Elizabeth rolled the rubber bands over Neal's knuckles, gently fastening the circular sponges to his palms. Then she dipped his hands in the paint tray. "Have fun."

Neal was crouched on a chair near the table, facing the canvas, and he examined these new attachments to his hands. Unless he was climbing something, he hadn't ever quite figured out that his thumbs were truly opposable, or that his other fingers could separate whenever he pleased. Consequently his hands were a little cupped and stiff. But now he had something on them that smelled very strong, and this intrigued him. He bopped his own chest and looked startled at the big red circle he left on the front of his smock.

"Oh, jeez. No, Neal, over here! Go splat over here, honey." Elizabeth tapped the canvas and giggled when Neal batted at it tentatively. He left a little red mark in the corner. Then he put his hand down further up and left a complete red circle. And, as Elizabeth suspected would happen, the lights turned on.

Soon Neal was going crazy, smacking his hands all over the place and intrepidly red-circling his way across the canvas. Elizabeth switched out the red sponges for clean ones and dipped him into some purple paint. Neal seemed delighted by the color change, and purple swirls appeared. Then came some green and blue streaks, and finally he made a few explosions of yellow in one corner. By the time the canvas was done, Neal had little globs of paint on his face, in his hair, and on his smock. He was filthy. He was panting. He was glowing. Elizabeth smiled. She set the canvas on the floor to dry, and brought out a fresh one, a 40 by 30. And this time she let him choose the colors.

* * *

Jones forgot and Peter forgot, so it wasn't until mid-March that Peter actually got an answer about the strange photograph on Cruz's desk. By this time he was deeply involved in the three handcarts full of boxes that had arrived from the D.C. office back at the end of February. No one in the White Collar division had any clue what he'd requisitioned, and he wanted to keep it that way, so when Jones knocked at the door, Peter hastily closed the file on a heist in Amsterdam attributed to CAFFREY, N., as the boxes all stated in block lettering, scrawled with a black Sharpie. (Peter had carefully turned the boxes so all the Caffreys faced the window, and no one in the office would know what was inside.) His team was between cases at the moment, catching up on paperwork. Peter was looking forward to being home for dinner tonight and maybe taking a few files with him.

"What's up, Jones?"

"Peter, can we talk?"

That didn't sound good. Peter leaned back in his chair and motioned at the chair across his desk. Jones closed the door behind him and plopped himself down.

"Don't do it," was his opener.

Peter blinked at him. "Don't do what?"

"That." Jones pointed at the closed file on Peter's desk. "Don't look into Neal anymore. You should just accept that he is what he is, and…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's this nonsense about Neal?" Peter had a good game face, but it wasn't enough.

"Peter, please. I know. Cruz knows. Hell, half the _office_ knows. You think it wasn't suspicious when you practically stopped speaking to everybody two weeks ago and started digging through those boxes and tramping back and forth to the copy machine?"

Peter slumped, crossed his arms, and glared even as his cheeks reddened. "How did you know it was about Neal?"

Jones shrugged. "I snooped. My boss is someone who leaves no stone unturned, and that's rubbed off on me."

Peter ignored the compliment. "What's the matter with looking into Neal? I can do what I want where he's concerned."

"I know. But it'll just make you depressed, and it might make you do something terrible. The same thing happened to Cruz." Jones sighed and rubbed a hand over his head. "Look, I need you to keep this under your hat, because it's really personal. Remember when you asked her about that picture of her and Morgan?"

Peter nodded, because there was no forgetting that mermaid, but the pieces weren't quite connecting. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Morgan was Cruz's peet about five years ago. She … you know how Neal's a cat? Well, Morgan was a fish. Cruz had a great time with her. She took her to the pool all the time, spritzed her down with water when she started gasping for air, because that was Morgan's thing, if she wasn't moist enough she would think she couldn't breathe … she fed her right, let her sleep in the bathtub, the whole thing. Cruz kept her happy. But after a few months, Morgan wasn't really 'opening up,' so she got concerned and looked into Morgan's history."

"And discovered Morgan was once really smart?" Peter offered. He only said this because he'd been reading some incredible stuff about Neal these past few weeks, and was projecting.

Thankfully, Jones didn't think too hard about Peter's question and shook his head. "She discovered that the prison did the mind-wipe wrong. Normally what you see with peets is the animal behavior, but with a definite undercurrent of a personality. Well, with Morgan, there was nothing underneath the fish."

Peter was stunned. "You mean they just … they _erased_ her?"

Jones nodded. "They screwed up, Peter. There was no mind left. I remember Cruz actually took Morgan for an MRI to confirm." He shook his head. "She was crushed. Decided this was no kind of life. So she took Morgan to the beach and … let her go. Just watched her run off into the ocean and start swimming. Body washed up on Fire Island a week later. The cops called it an accident. Cruz had her cremated and scattered her ashes off the pier, and she's kept fish ever since. You know, in memoriam."

Peter didn't know what to say. Euthanizing a peet was very much a gray area, ethically speaking. Of course, the law didn't call it murder because cons weren't people, they were property, and if their owners felt that ending their half-lives was a mercy, then so be it. But it was frowned upon. It wasn't as heinous as full-on "liberation," because turning convicts out into the street to let the drugs wear off and allowing them to die from the withdrawal was beyond the pale, but it came close. Peter stared out at the bullpen and zeroed in on Cruz. He knew it wasn't right, but he sympathized with her, he really did. It must have been a very painful decision. She was acting in what she knew were Morgan's best interests. Plus, he finally understood the fish thing now. (He hadn't for a long time. He'd thought it was weird.)

"I'll keep quiet," he said finally. "And thank you for your concern about my research. I promise you, everything will be fine."

Jones heard the "dismissed" loud and clear. And he noticed that nowhere in Peter's response were the words, "I'll stop." He hadn't changed his boss's mind one jot. He got up and took his leave, hoping against hope that Peter knew what he was doing.

* * *

On a dreary, drizzly Saturday in late March, Elizabeth didn't have to be at a wedding or a cocktail party for once, and she was itching to do something cultural, so she tried to drag Peter to the Met. Peter had zero interest in the latest exhibition of European Post-Impressionists. He wanted to cuddle on the couch with Satchmo, drink a beer and watch ESPN.

"Why don't you take Neal?" he suggested. He was feeling sly and powerful with all the knowledge he'd amassed, and he knew Neal would enjoy the experience. "Just make sure you keep him on the leash, even inside. They have rules about peets."

"That's a great idea!" Elizabeth said. "I'm sure he'd love the paintings. Heck, he's got talent. That abstract in the bedroom is pretty amazing, right?"

Peter stared at her. "You mean that painting across from the bed? I thought you picked that up at a gallery."

It was Elizabeth's turn to feel smug. "I didn't. Neal made it all by himself. I let him choose the colors and he just went for it. I was going to tell you sooner, but there really wasn't a good time. Plus, I didn't think you'd believe me!"

Peter just blinked. The abstract painting, a really elegant, minimalist design utilizing the blank space of the canvas and subtle blues, purples and flashes of gold, was one of his favorite things in the house. Elizabeth had given it to him back in January. And knowing what he knew about Neal…

"Oh, I definitely believe you," he said. "I think Neal's napping on the guest bed upstairs. If you guys get moving now, you can make it to the Met by 1 o'clock."

* * *

The second week of April was blessed with perfect weather, so that Sunday afternoon Peter decided to take Neal to the con run in Central Park instead of Peets Fifth Avenue. The air was lovely and fresh, the grass was vibrant green, the flowers were in bloom and the sky was a life-affirming blue. It was always so beautiful after it rained.

On their way to the con run, they passed a stone lamppost. Someone had tacked a poster to it and Peter wandered over to read it, even though Neal was nosing at some nearby camellias and tugging at the leash. _Have You Seen Me?_ the poster said. Below the words was a candid shot of a craggy-faced older man with gray hair, pouches under his eyes, and a rather dour expression. _$5000 reward. Missing since September 13, 2009. Answers to "Buster." We miss him terribly. If found, please call…_ The phone number followed.

Peter shook his head sadly. "Probably dead in a gutter somewhere," he mumbled. "See?" he said to Neal, firmly tugging him away from the flowers. "This is what happens when people don't pay enough attention to their convicts. They wander off, get lost, and die. That's never going to happen to you, though. Don't worry." He slung an arm over Neal's shoulders and ruffled his hair. "Come on, let's hit the park."

The con run was large and fenced in on all sides. The grass was a torn-up disaster and the whole place was a little careworn, but Neal was in his favorite grubby sweats and eager to get going, so Peter unhooked his leash at the entry gate and let him run off. Then he looked for a bench. The cleanest one had another person on it: a very well dressed, dignified, classy woman with perfectly coiffed brown hair, mocha skin, rounded features and wise brown eyes that sized Peter up for a second after he'd asked if he could sit down.

"Of course." Her voice was mellow and sweet. She gestured with one manicured hand. "Please."

"Thank you," said Peter. "Boy, you gotta love this weather, huh?"

"Oh, isn't it beautiful today? Normally we go to the run in Manhattan, but I thought it would be a nice change."

Peter smiled at her and watched Neal, who was trying to catch a pigeon from a fleeing flock. He privately thanked God that Neal was too slow to actually get his hands on one (those things were totally diseased) and pointed him out proudly. "That one's mine, with the blue eyes."

"Oh, he's very handsome," the woman said. "And look at him go!" Neal was gunning for the very last escaping bird, tongue out in concentration. He leaped, grabbed, missed, and fell over on his side, staining his entire flank with dirt and grass. Unfazed, he shook himself off and began investigating the large tree in the middle of the area.

Peter smiled. "Yeah, he's something of an athlete. Which one's yours?"

The woman looked around. "Hmm, that's odd, I don't see him. He must be behind the tree. Oh well, he'll show himself soon enough. By the way … you are?"

"Agent Peter Burke, FBI." Peter held out his hand for a shake.

The woman accepted his hand and shook firmly. "June Waters. Nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

"May I ask, how long have you had … what is his name?"

"Neal. We got him back in September. How about you?"

"Oh, I adopted Hav in January. He's a sweetheart. Very devoted to me."

"Yeah, Neal's one of the family, too."

Suddenly they were interrupted by a very noisy fight. They whipped around to stare at the tree, just in time to see Neal streak up the trunk and reach the first branch.

"Rarf! Arf arf arf arf arf!" A man, short, balding, stocky and bespectacled, was barking his head off and pawing at the tree. And he obviously belonged to June. The black horn-rimmed frames of his glasses were designer, his brown track suit was quality velour, and his "fool around in the park" shoes were Asics. As Peter observed these things, Neal was steadily climbing branches, working his way higher and higher, stopping every so often to hiss over his shoulder.

The two owners hurried over to intervene.

"Haversham, no!" June cried, trying to get the man by the collar. "You get away from that poor thing!"

"Neal!" Peter whistled through his teeth. "No! Uh uh! You get down here right now! That's too high!"

"Haversham, heel! For heaven's sake -"

"Get your ass out of that tree this instant!"

"Heel, or no treats!"

"You do _not_ want me to call the fire department, mister! Start climbing!" He turned to June, who was struggling with Haversham. "You need help with him?"

"Please," June said through gritted teeth. Peter held Haversham still even though Haversham growled at him, but June got the leash on him and tugged him back. "Go ahead," she said breathlessly, motioning at the tree. "Get him down."

It took Peter a few minutes to coax Neal back to lower and lower branches, until he was finally on the branch right above Peter's head. Unfortunately, Neal was shaking from having been up so high, and he was afraid to make the final leap to the ground. Peter had to grab his waist and pluck him off the branch. Neal scrambled all over him, pawing at him frantically while he tried to get his bearings, and missed Peter's nose with his knee by an inch. But Peter set him down on the grass, held him still, and petted him until he stopped shaking. Then he hooked the leash on him and went to sit on the bench next to June, where she was cuddling Haversham.

Haversham was rather possessive of his owner. He growled at Peter and barked once. Neal was terrified and crouched beside the bench, only daring to peek out over Peter's knees at his pursuer. Haversham growled and Neal ducked down again. Peter sighed.

"I'm sorry about that," he said. "He's normally a lot more social."

"No, _I'm_ sorry," said June. "Haversham is normally much better behaved, although his bark is worse than his bite. Naughty!" she scolded, and bopped Haversham gently on the nose. "I suppose he just doesn't like cats."

"Is that his real name?" Peter asked.

"No, the records said he was 'Moz,' or something like that, but I thought 'Haversham' fit better. It doesn't matter, really. Soon he'll be able to tell me his preference."

Peter frowned. "How?"

June smirked then, because she knew she was about to say something absolutely delicious and shocking. "Well, I'm going to set him free tomorrow."

Peter stared. "Are you joking?"

"Not at all."

"But…" Peter was reeling. "But won't that kill him?"

"Oh, please! That old misinformed argument? My dear, I have been fostering, rehabilitating, and freeing convicts for almost fifty years, and not a single one has died on my watch."

"How's that possible?"

June just smiled again and dug out a business card from her purse. "Love, patience, and lots of help. This is my man in the city. Excellent physician; he's been working with me for the last five years. I think he's based in the Hamptons now, but he's in town often enough to handle things like this regularly."

Peter accepted the business card and was stunned at the familiar name on it. He struggled to find his footing again. "Fifty years, you've been at this?"

June nodded. "The first convict I freed was really the impetus to keep going. His name was Byron. He changed my life forever."

"Oh, yeah? You two become pen pals?" Peter joked.

June's smile turned a little pained. "No. I married him. He died two years ago." She cocked her head and looked at Neal, who had come out of hiding just a little bit. "As a matter of fact, Neal looks to be just his size, and I have a whole collection of Byron's suits at home. They're just sitting there. They'd probably look wonderful on him." Haversham seemed to have calmed down and she scratched him gently behind the ears. "Anyway, Haversham here was arrested for something minor, but he was suspected in all sorts of shady dealings, so they wiped his mind, the vultures. Why was Neal arrested?"

Peter snorted; it really was silly. "Well, technically, he was arrested because NYPD mistook him for another suspect and chased him into a lamppost. They ran his prints at the station and the Bureau swooped in. See, he was being pursued by the D.C. office of the FBI, even though the police actually did the work for us. We finally got him on bond forgery. He was suspected in all sorts of other things too, though. Art theft, counterfeiting, securities fraud, racketeering … pretty astonishing resumé. Brilliant con artist. Heck, he was a great visual artist. He was listed as a person of interest in art forgeries all over the place. They probably wiped his mind on Day 2."

"Well, I think _that's_ criminal, depriving someone of their reasoning power and locking them in a cage," June said. "I don't care if it's been happening for a hundred years; that doesn't make it right."

Peter sighed. He'd been hearing this pro-convict argument more and more, recently. "Yes, but Mrs. Waters, it keeps the rest of society that much safer, and we've really made a lot of progress. I mean, back in the 1910's and 20's, they used to lobotomize them and put them to work in factories! You have to admit, this is far more humane."

June paused to fix her wise gaze on Peter. And she responded with two words that shook him to the core.

"Is it?"

* * *

Something about the way June said her piece gnawed at Peter for the rest of the afternoon, especially since they were coming up on their deadline to see "Dr. Hank," as Elizabeth called him. And that evening, Peter decided that he'd researched Neal enough and wanted to tell Elizabeth everything he knew. As soon as his lovely wife was perched on the couch with a glass of wine in her hand, awaiting his announcement, he began.

"Well, honey, someone at the office sounded impressed by Neal, so I got curious. I've read a lot of stuff: field reports, interview transcripts, case files, all kinds of information. And Neal, as it turns out ... there's no getting around this. Neal is one of the smartest criminals on the planet."

It was a profound statement. Unfortunately, right as Peter made it, Neal was spinning around in a circle and trying to catch his own ass with his teeth. Peter sighed, Elizabeth snickered, and Neal fell over in a dizzy heap. Peter slapped his pen down on the file in his lap. He knew it was totally irrational, but he was really annoyed with Neal anyway. Here he had all these great stories and tons of accurate, impressive information, and he might as well have just told his wife that Satchmo had been nominated for the Presidency because of his legendary tenure as Secretary of State.

"Peter, sweetheart, that's nuts." Elizabeth started to laugh again. "I mean, look at him!" Neal pawed at the ceiling with slightly crossed eyes and meowed.

"Neal, zip it. And Elle, I swear, I'm not making this up. I've done a lot of research."

"I'm sure you have." Elizabeth's tone made it clear that Peter had an up-hill battle ahead of him. She took a sip of wine, set her glass down, and leaned back. "Okay, let's hear it. What is it that Neal is supposed to have done?"

Peter seized his chance and began to tick things off on his fingers. "He was a professional thief, a con man too smart for his own good, and an expert art forger. High profile heists from here to Tokyo: antiquities, safe deposit boxes, paintings, rare jewels ... you name it, he probably stole it. He boosted The Mona Lisa. Twice. And this kid played by his own rules. Get this: he once joined a crime syndicate, and instead of doing his job, he gathered intelligence on their targets, saved the targets from being kidnapped or killed, ripped off the leader of the gang for half a million dollars, and got away clean with the money. I mean, I can't even figure this guy out. Scammer. Hero. Villain. Genius." At Elizabeth's raised eyebrows he added, "Seriously, he was terrifyingly smart. He started in right out of high school. He was in the game ten years before he was arrested, and his arrest was dumb luck."

Elizabeth was quiet for a bit, mulling all this over. Then she looked at Neal, smiled real big and held out her arms. "Neal? Come here, sweetheart, come to Mommy!" She patted her lap. Neal was still dizzy. He meowed and staggered over. "That's it!" He landed on her gently and she got her arms around him. "Ooooh." She started snuggling him. "Who's my beautiful boy, huh? You are. That's right." She kissed him on the forehead. Neal stared vacantly.

Peter was not pleased. "Is this your way of saying you don't believe me?"

Elizabeth ignored him in favor of kissing Neal on the cheek five times, rapid-fire. He scrunched his eyes shut, but allowed it. "Hey, Neal? Give Mommy a kiss."

Neal blinked at Elizabeth. Then he leaned in and licked her ear. Elizabeth squealed in surprise and Peter started laughing.

"No, you mischievous ... don't _lick_ Mommy, _kiss_ Momm – ee – hee-hee! Augh!" (Neal got her again.) Seeing that her husband was still enjoying himself at her expense, she narrowed her eyes. Revenge was swift. She pointed at Peter. "Neal? Go kiss Daddy. Go on!"

"Wait, what? Nonono–" Peter wasn't fast enough. Neal pounced on him and enthusiastically licked his face. "Oof! Ugh! No! Bad! Neal, off! Now!"

He shooed him away and while Neal fled back to the safety of Elizabeth's arms, he wiped off his wet cheek. "Look, if you're saying you're happy with him being like this, I couldn't agree more. We're really lucky he's controlled and safe with us. I met some batty old lady in the park today who said she's been releasing convicts for fifty years; she's found some safe way of doing it. But I couldn't even imagine the damage Neal could do if we released him."

Elizabeth and Neal looked at each other then. Neal blinked at her, nuzzled her nose with his own and scampered off. Elizabeth suddenly couldn't meet Peter's eyes.

"Funny you should mention release," she said.

Peter frowned at her. Something was up. "Uh oh. Elle, what have you done?"

"I haven't done anything! It's just, well, I've been going to a support group for a few weeks now, you know, for people who own convicts. I've learned a lot, and I've had a lot to think about, and I..." She stopped and started from the beginning. "Neal doesn't have any real filter. He might have been a brilliant con artist once upon a time, but right now he doesn't know how to be anything other than himself. And you have to admit, his personality is adorable. Right?"

Peter sighed, but he couldn't deny it. "Right."

"He's smart, he's kind, he's affectionate, he's loyal … he has so much potential. And yes, I know he's a criminal. But you say he's such a clever guy, such a talented guy."

"Elle," Peter said gently, "He's a cat."

"I know that, but there's an incredible person hiding under there. A sweetheart." She motioned at Peter, recalling his words. "A genius. If Neal is half as accomplished as you say he is, then…" She took a moment and gathered herself together. "Then he deserves an honest second chance. Not as a pet, but as a man."

Peter looked warily at his wife. Elizabeth steeled herself and said it.

"Honey, I think we should liberate him."


	5. Nine Lives

In less experienced hands the ensuing argument would have been disastrous, but Peter and Elizabeth had been doing the marriage thing for a decade by now. They knew how to handle it.

Elizabeth stated her case. The support group was run by a fledgling equal-rights organization called CAP (Convicts Are People). CAP's main tenet was "loving liberation" or "responsible release," the process of gently weaning convicts off the mind-control drugs in the comfort of their owners' homes and then letting them find their way as actual people. She didn't have any real details yet, but it sounded like what June did. It didn't sound crazy, and it felt right to help Neal this way, even though he'd stop being their pet. There was going to be a seminar on responsible release on Saturday, and Peter should come with her. CAP charged a $100 fee for a year's membership (which she'd paid), oh and honey, look at the little gold CAP pin she got! Wasn't the human hand inside a paw print a cute idea? It was only twenty dollars.

Peter, dismayed, stated his own case. CAP sounded like a total scam. They weren't offering any details, yet they were taking Elle's hard-earned money, and that made him angry. He declared these people on the same dangerous wavelength as the CLF (Convict Liberation Front) and PET-P (People for the Ethical Treatment of Prisoners), two completely irresponsible groups that engineered prison breaks and shooed defenseless convicts out into the night to "make a point." The convicts generally ended up crawling under people's front steps to die alone, usually from the withdrawal but sometimes from starvation or disease. It was an atrocity, and did Elizabeth know how many "ex-convicts" were fished out of the Hudson River every year? Hundreds.

Elizabeth understood, but she really wanted Peter with her at the meeting. She played her trump card. "If I make meatloaf for dinner, will you come?"

Peter frowned. "That's not fair. You know I'll do anything for your meatloaf."

Elizabeth grinned. "What can I say? I fight dirty."

It took some wheedling (Elizabeth had to throw in homemade tiramisu and a bottle of Chablis) but Peter finally relented. Elizabeth wasn't satisfied, though. She seriously wanted to know what Peter thought about the idea of releasing Neal. Assuming Neal made it through the withdrawal all right and got the chance to legitimately make a life, would he take it? Or was he an irredeemable thief? When she asked this, it was 10 PM.

At 3 AM, they were bleary and weary, but still doggedly talking it out. Satchmo was snoring on his bed near the couch. Neal had wormed his head and shoulders into Elizabeth's lap and was breathing evenly against her belly. The pets were sensibly asleep; the people were still going at it. But after some final hand-wringing and quiet tears, Peter was won over. They agreed to set Neal free.

* * *

The next day at work was a total loss. Peter was way too sleepy to be of any real use, although he somehow managed to make everything in his Inbox wind up in his Outbox. But Tuesday was a different story. Everybody got plenty of sleep the night before, and after a productive day at the office, Peter hooked Neal on the leash and led him into the animal clinic for his April check-up with "Dr. Hank."

Peter was eager to confirm from a reliable source that responsible release wasn't just a bunch of bullshit. And he had the business card that June had given him; he snorted as he read the name again, more impressed than ever. (Peter was a great admirer of straight faces and hidden agendas.) Man, did the guy play it cool! When they'd taken Neal in for his shot back in January, he hadn't betrayed any allegiance to this idea at all, although it made sense when he considered the attached stigma.

But Peter was also a great admirer of people who did the right thing, whether it was stigmatized or not. Hank Lawson was in for a surprise.

They were shown into the exam room and Hank stepped in, with a ready handshake for Peter and an ear-scratch for Neal, who obediently hopped up on the table and folded himself down on the crinkly paper. Hank checked him out gently and asked Peter if Neal had been feeling all right. Peter said yes. When Hank began to note things on the chart, he gathered his nerve and launched straight into it.

"You know, I got your card from a very interesting woman on Sunday. June Waters." He waited for a reaction, and wasn't disappointed. Hank's face went totally blank. Peter hastened to reassure him. "She was very nice, and she gave me some things to think about. My wife and I had a discussion, and we're in agreement. I just had a couple of questions. Do you have a minute?"

"I have more than a minute." Hank sounded pleasantly surprised. "What's on your mind?"

"Well," Peter said, plopping down on a nearby stool, "Mind you, this is all hypothetical. I'm curious to know what would happen … if we wanted to free Neal. Can that be done without him dying?"

Now Hank was excited. He pulled up a chair and sat down. "Hypothetically? Yes, absolutely."

"People free their convicts a lot? Hypothetically?" Peter asked, as Neal curled up in a ball on the table.

"Hypothetically, it's been happening more and more. In fact, hypothetically, I'm one of the guys to call in New York. There's this loose hypothetical network of us who have regular medical jobs but do this sort of work on the side."

Peter was pleased. "I see. And hypothetically, if I took June's recommendation and hired you, what would you charge to help us?"

"Hypothetically, this is a mission of mercy. It's pro bono."

This was getting better and better. Peter smiled and shook Hank's hand. "Well, I'm glad we had this hypothetical conversation. I'll be in touch."

"I'll keep my phone on," said Hank. "Just to let you know, I checked Neal's site, and I can't see any blue under the skin, which is good, but it _is_ getting pretty flat. There's no danger of the drugs wearing off for at least two weeks, so don't think this has to happen right away, but if you'd like me to do this then I could safely devote myself to Neal starting on Sunday."

"Like, five days from now."

"Yeah. Now, if you'll excuse me," Hank said, standing up, "I have to get back to June. Last night we got started with Mr. Haversham. She's got me on speed dial, but I can't be away from them for too long." Then he snapped his fingers. "You know what? Here." He took out another one of his business cards from his lab coat pocket and handed Peter a pen. "Would you mind writing down your number? June is really quite amazing. She'd be happy to call you and speak to you about the process. Besides, the waiting gets a little lonely sometimes. I think she'd enjoy talking to you."

Peter scribbled his cell number on the card immediately. "If she calls, I'll take it."

* * *

Neal's last week of cat-hood passed pleasantly and uneventfully. Peter took him to the park at every opportunity, and received lots of phone calls from June about Mr. Haversham's progress. (He was handling things as well as could be expected, and he was never alone.) Soon Peter was calling June, and June was calling Elizabeth too, delighted to provide some guidance on their journey. The three became fast friends. On Friday, Peter was actually invited to June's amazingly elegant house to visit the patient, and came away very pleased and hopeful.

The Saturday afternoon CAP meeting, on the other hand, was a total bust. Peter was bored stupid and even Elizabeth despaired of the long-winded speeches. The presenters spent half the time rehashing the particulars of America's hundred-year "habit," which was a total insult because anybody who could read a damn history book knew the chronology. Peter listened grudgingly. 1910, Bloomsgate Prison starts lobotomizing death row inmates instead of killing them, blah blah blah, 1938 discovery of Subtrexapam, the first mind-wipe, too bad Subtrexapam eats brain cells and leaves convicts drooling idiots, _whoopsies_, anyway, 1950, Wilson Carter and Jerome Hawkins share the Nobel Prize for creating Pensarisom and Animalin, yaketty-yaketty, here we are, look how civilized, designer animal drugs like Felinistat, Cannitor, and Avitrol, plus a healthy dose of Pensarisom Mark 16 (Mark 17 due out in 2011) for kinder, gentler mind suppression. But the drugs still cause damage and weaken heart muscle to the point where the heart gives out prematurely, which is of course why convicts don't have normal human life spans.

Peter almost groaned aloud. It was like they were reading one of those "So You Want to Adopt a Convict" pamphlets at the veterinarian's office. After more blithering about "loving liberation" with a minimum of details, the meeting ended with a sales pitch. For only two thousand dollars, CAP would send a medical professional and all the soothing drugs necessary for a successful withdrawal. Peter asked if the medical professional was licensed or experienced. He got such a stinking face-full of evasive B.S. for his trouble that he just rolled his head over to the left and raised his eyebrows at his wife.

Elizabeth banged pots around in disgust as she made dinner later, muttering things like "shakedown" and "lying bastards" and "thank God for June." Neal and Satchmo sat on their haunches by the door and watched her every move. They were hoping some morsel would fall out of the pan on her way to the oven. (It didn't.) She got the meatloaf in, slammed the oven door forcefully, and after a tender look at her guys, because Mommy wasn't angry with _them_, she removed her gold lapel pin and threw it in the kitchen garbage.

Peter was no fool. He kissed the cook, complimented the meal, and didn't say anything that could ever be interpreted as an "I told you so."

* * *

Hank showed up at their house the next afternoon and enlisted Peter to help haul in all the portable monitoring equipment and other medical supplies he'd need in the coming days. Neal was stretched out on the bed in the guest room, head pillowed in Elizabeth's lap, naked under a few blankets (doctor's orders) and blinking at the ceiling. He was also stoned out of his mind, lazily batting at things that weren't there, because about half an hour before Hank's arrival, also on doctor's orders, Elizabeth had fed him a tranquilizer pill hidden in a blob of cheese. She just petted him now, trying to remain calm for his sake as she watched her husband and the doctor put everything in place.

Hank proved himself to be a very able physician. He was courteous and confident, and he worked fast and clean. Within ten minutes Neal was hooked up to a few monitors, his heartbeat blipping by and his O2 stats looking fine. Hank set him up with an IV of fluids and pushed a very small dose of something that relaxed him completely. He got a catheter into his bladder, and worked with Elizabeth and Peter to roll him over on his belly. The Burkes stuffed some pillows under his chest so that his head hung low and the back of his neck was exposed, and Hank immediately got to work with the razor, the antiseptic, and the scalpel. At the thirty minute mark, the gel pack was out, the local anesthetic was still going strong, and the site was properly sutured and bandaged.

Peter shook his head in astonishment. "I'm kind of amazed that you're doing this without a hospital."

Hank gave Peter a wry smile as he tossed his used mask and gloves in the trash. "You'd be surprised what I can do without a hospital. All right, let's get him comfy." They settled Neal on his back and covered him again. Hank turned to them. "I have one question for you two. Are you ready for a long week? Because this is not going to be pretty. I've been told that the withdrawal feels like having a migraine and the flu at the same time."

Peter looked Elizabeth a little nervously. His heart was fluttering but there was no going back now. He squeezed her hand. "Soon as you start those meds, we're both calling in sick." Elizabeth nodded in agreement.

Hank nodded back. "All right, then. Here we go." He hooked up two rather large bags to Neal's IV and fed them into the main line, and added a preemptive shot of painkillers. "Keep an eye on him. You know Neal best; any sign of pain and I'll up the dose."

"Will do. Which one does what, again?" Elizabeth asked as she tucked the covers around Neal's shoulders.

Hank pointed at the first one. "That's the … well it's got some long string of numbers for a name, so we just call it 'Goo Gone.' It's going to dissolve the sticky network that Pensarisom creates, and his mind will be able to surface properly. The other is the Antifelin, which binds to the Felinistat and renders it inert. Everything should start to flush out of his system pretty quickly."

"How do you know when the drugs are all gone?" Peter asked.

"Uh, the 'Goo Gone' turns blue when it picks up Pensarisom, and Antifelin turns red when it binds with the Felinistat, so I'll start seeing green and orange stuff in the catheter bag. When the bag is yellow again, he's free and clear. And I want to reiterate that you two are really doing the right thing by staying close. The drugs help the convicts survive the withdrawal, but in the end, it's the human connection that saves them."

Elizabeth smiled sadly as she rested one hand on Neal's head. "I just wonder what he'll remember when he wakes up."

"Quite a lot, actually. His life before the animalization will definitely come back to him. It'll just take him a few days. And he'll retain some deep sense memories of you, only none of it will be conscious. For example, you shouldn't expect Neal to know your name, but he might remember your smell or your touch. That's the thing about the Animal shell; the base-brain experiences are the only things that stick. It's a double-edged sword, really."

Peter stared at Hank. "I don't get it. How is that double-edged?"

"Well, the human mind underneath it is closed off from the world, which is not good, but it's also protected from any … unpleasantness that might occur." Rather than clarify this, he side-stepped. "Anyway, you two should probably go call in sick and then settle in up here. It's going to be a wait. I've never seen the initial flush take less than six hours."

Elizabeth checked the clock. "So, he should actually start withdrawing at eleven?" That seemed rather late to be going about a business like this.

Hank caught the concern beneath her question. "Yeah, I've done a lot of these, and I've found that for some reason, starting the withdrawal at night makes it easier on the patient." He shrugged.

That satisfied Elizabeth. With one final smoothing back of Neal's hair, she got up. "I'll go call Julie. Oh, Hank, would you like white or red wine with dinner?"

Hank blinked and "uhh"ed. Peter chuckled. That was just Elle's way. "Sorry, buddy, you're roped in. No sneaking out for you."

Hank didn't look too upset at this. "That's very kind of you. I guess … um …" _Sorry, I can't drink on the job_ didn't seem to be an option here. "What are we having?"

"Leftover meatloaf and green salad," said Elizabeth.

Peter made a dismissive gesture. "She's understating it. Her meatloaf is … it's meatloaf of the Gods. I'm not kidding. And there's a really nice bottle of Chablis in the fridge. Plenty for three."

Hank smiled and threw up his hands. "Then I guess I'm having Chablis and meatloaf."

"All right!" Elizabeth made for the door. "Peter, are you staying up here with Neal, or are you calling Reese?"

Peter pulled out his cell phone. "I'm doing both at the same time."

"Um, you should actually take that outside," Hank said. "If your boss hears all this beeping, there will be questions."

Peter acknowledged this logic and stepped out into the hall. Hank was left alone with Neal, who had passed out halfway through the gel-pack removal. The convict snored lightly. Hank smiled.

"Man, you have those two people completely wrapped around your little finger. And when you wake up, you'd better not blow it. You'll break their hearts."

* * *

They ended up dining in the guest room, so that Hank could eat and still keep an eye on the monitors. The conversation was civilized and lively, and the doctor had some interesting things to say.

First, they talked tech.

"You know what the worst part of this technology is? We could be using it for so much better things, and we're not!" Hank said through a mouthful of salad. "We could be hunting down brain tumors with this method. Or, say there's some massive disaster, like an oil spill. God forbid, right? Well, drugs like Antifelin are accurate missiles. They find something specific and change it so that it can't do any harm. And we're producing this stuff in mass quantities. So, okay, here's your oil spill, you sprinkle something in the water that works like Antifelin, and presto-change-o, the oil is either molecularly altered so it can't do any damage and sinks back to the bottom of the ocean, or it's ripped apart, or whatever, and in minutes, maybe hours, problem solved. But this tech isn't approved for any kind of helpful research. It's just a crime."

They accidentally got personal. Elizabeth asked where Hank was working now.

"Um, I'm in private practice … because I got fired. And ironically, I got fired because I treated someone too well." He explained. "I was working at an ER in Brooklyn last year, and I admitted a man who had been hit by a car. He was unconscious and he'd broken a leg. I treated his injuries and he woke up." Hank licked his lips. "And he started barking." Off the Burkes' wide-eyed looks, he nodded. "Yeah. I'd just done something totally illegal without realizing it. But I decided that I had a duty to this man, because call him what you want, he was a _man_, and instead of throwing him out and having his owner arrested, I kept him for observation and I sent him home with some prescriptions. The hospital board, as I'm sure you can imagine, wanted my head on a plate. But they didn't want the story getting out, so they made up some nonsense about me letting a hospital trustee die and I was on the street with a box of stuff from my desk in two hours. So, now I'm working as a concierge doctor, but I've been doing this kind of work on the side for a while, even before I got fired. It's just really important."

And of course, they talked shop.

"I don't want you to worry," he said as he checked the bag on the end of the bed around 10 o'clock, "But we're getting close and you need to know what'll happen. As soon as the drugs clear his bloodstream, his human mind is going to try to take over. It's like a relay race. The hand-off can be problematic."

Peter was totally into the sports metaphor. "No one's going to drop the baton, right?" he said.

"Hopefully not but sometimes there's some fumbling. I'll be on standby just in case. Anyway, you're going to see his heartbeat and breathing slow, because the deep-brain functions are going to be confused for a bit. But I want to assure you, it's perfectly normal."

Elizabeth nodded. And later, when Neal's heart rate began to drop, along with his oxygen levels, she climbed onto the bed and bundled him snugly into her arms, along with most of his covers, and cradled his head and shoulders. No one stopped her. The blips on the heart monitor got further and further apart. Satchmo came in then because something smelled wrong, and he padded over to the bed, tail wagging slowly. Peter understood what his dog was about to lose. He didn't shoo him away.

"Satchmo and Neal were buddies," he explained sadly to Hank. "They used to play all the time. Slept together on the couch."

Hank eyed the little scene. Neal's heartbeat was getting slower and slower, and so was his breathing. Peter clambered up to put an arm around Elizabeth, who looked miserable. Satchmo planted his front paws on the bed and snuffled his wet nose against Neal's cheek. The phrase came to mind unbidden: _a death in the family_. Hank caught Elizabeth's eye and tried to wordlessly reassure her.

She sniffed and a tear slipped out. "I'm sorry. It's just, well, I love him. And I'm scared."

"Try not to worry," Hank said gently. "I know this is terrifying, but he'll be just fine."

Neal had been a lively, sweet pet, but he'd always been slightly contrary with people he didn't know well, so it was only appropriate that his final act as a cat made Hank look like an idiot.

He flatlined.

Instantly, everything was motion and noise. The heart monitor was shrilling BEEEEEEE- and Elizabeth was screaming Neal's name and crying in horror as Peter dragged her away so Hank could work. Satchmo started barking and Peter had to order him off. Hank pulled the covers back, readied the portable defibrillator and his patient, and shocked him. Neal's body jumped. Hank looked at the monitor. Nothing. He cursed under his breath and tried again. This time, the heartbeat came back and Hank breathed in relief.

"Normal sinus."

"OH!" Elizabeth cried. She buried her face in Peter's chest and fisted the back of his shirt as he held her close.

"Okay, the good news is, the danger is past," Hank said, trying to placate. "And now I need to get Neal on some oxygen."

Once the crisis was over, it took a few minutes for everyone to calm down. Elizabeth properly swaddled Neal in blankets and soon he was settled low in her arms, wrapped up like a newborn and slowly fogging the oxygen mask. Hank accepted some pillows from Peter and used them to elevate Neal's feet. Satchmo curled himself up in a ball on the far corner of the mattress (he was staying, come hell or high water) and the mood was quiet and somber. But Peter had earned a PhD in gallows humor from his years in law enforcement, so he took it upon himself to make the obligatory wisecrack.

"Well … eight lives left."

Hank had been through the same post-graduate program by virtue of his profession. He smirked. Elizabeth wasn't amused at all; she turned a face-melting glare on both of them and jealously cuddled Neal.


	6. Cat's Cradle

The next three days were hellish. The only mercy was that Neal wasn't "consciousness ready," as Hank put it. But while his mind hovered somewhere between a coma and a deep sleep, his brain and body were discovering all the wonderful and exciting mischief they could get into while they relearned to coordinate. Seizures. Fevers. Chills. Cramps and contortions. Spasms. Slow reflexes. Wildly fluctuating hormone levels. Uncontrollable vomiting and dry heaves. Unauthorized bowel movements.

Hank had to observe closely, think fast, and be prepared to do whatever was necessary to help. There was no way to predict the next crisis because every individual withdrawal was different, so it was a high-stakes game of call and treat. He pushed targeted medicines and IV nutrition and the Burkes did their best to keep the patient anchored and comfortable, but in the end, it was Neal's fight to win or lose and _that_ was what terrified Peter and Elizabeth; he seemed to be getting worse rather than better, and they were scared that they'd screwed up and condemned him after all. Hank assured them that they'd done the right thing. He gave his word that he wouldn't leave until everything was resolved.

Thankfully, by Thursday morning the withdrawal was subsiding. Neal, bundled warmly in Elizabeth's arms, came around with a blinding headache, moaned in agony and smashed his face into the nearest soft object, which happened to be her chest. Hank gave him something for the pain. After a bit he relaxed and opened his clear blue eyes halfway.

"Hey there," Hank said. "Can you speak?"

Neal licked his cracked lips and tried. And instead of moaning, or meowing, he said, "Hi."

It was the raspy husk of something that had once been a soft, sweet tenor voice. Elizabeth let out a breath and Peter allowed him a few sips from a cup of water.

"Thank you," he said next.

"You're welcome," Elizabeth said. "You had us all very worried, you know." A few strands of hair had gotten in his face; she smoothed them away.

Neal leaned into her touch and mirrored her small smile. "I'm sorry, have we met?"

Elizabeth's laugh was half a sob, because Neal was acting like he'd spotted her at some swanky bar. "We have," she said at last. "I'm Elizabeth." As Peter stuck his head into Neal's vision field and loomed sideways, she pointed him out. "This is my husband Peter." Peter waved.

"That's too bad," Neal said in complete seriousness, and Elizabeth's laugh was slightly hysterical this time.

However, all was clearly not right in the Land of Neal, because he introduced himself as Steve Tabernacle, called Elizabeth "Ellen," told her she had exquisite breasts and smelled beautiful, and after addressing Peter as "Pablo," ordered him to bring the lady a drink. Elizabeth just rolled with it. As Hank had warned them, Neal would be slightly scrambled for a while and sharing whatever popped into his head, whether it was appropriate or not. He called Hank "Doctor Hunk," and then "Doctor Skunk," because it rhymed. He waxed poetic about plaid and composed a vulgar limerick on the subject. And every time someone asked him who he was, he gave a different name. Peter added "Nick Halden" and "George Devore" to a growing list of possible aliases, and uncaring of his wife's scornful glance and Hank's amused expression, started interrogating Neal and taking notes. Neal defeated him without even trying – his answers were complete nonsense. When he finally asked Neal where he'd stashed all his loot over the years and Neal replied, with no trace of sarcasm, "The moon," Peter realized it was useless and gave up. Neal was looking tired anyway, so Hank suggested they bed him down for a nap.

"That was incredible," Peter said to Hank as he tucked his notepad into his pants pocket. "It's like he's on mushrooms, or he's got Asperger's, or something."

As Elizabeth tucked him in, Neal felt the need to contribute. "Mushrooms aren' so tasty, but I _do_ like asparagus. It's excellent off the grill with a lil' salt an' pepper." He passed out a second later.

Jelly-legged and flush with victory, Elizabeth followed Hank and Peter from the room. They stood outside the door in a small triangle and on impulse she took them both by the hand and gently squeezed.

"He survived," she said in a quiet, disbelieving sort of voice, because she had survived something too. "He did it." Peter pulled her close.

"He did," Hank agreed. "And the next time he wakes up, he'll be more lucid. You guys have done great. You probably don't even realize _how_ great."

Peter and Elizabeth looked at him curiously.

"Look, the Animal shell personality is a total abomination, and I'm not defending what it stands for, but it's simple and resilient," Hank said. "It has a short memory, and it overwrites sensory experiences very easily. So, let's say, for example, that Neal had a rotten time in jail. Once he was released he spent seven months with you, which is plenty of time for a memory overhaul. June calls this part 'rehabilitation' when she's talking shop, but it's really just love. You guys love him. You fed him, clothed him, played with him, and made him a part of your family. … You don't get it."

They shook their heads almost in sync and Hank smiled. "Once Neal really wakes up, chances are that the only base-brain experiences he'll be able to access are from his time with you two. He'll probably never remember prison at all. And thanks to the life you've built for him here, he has an excellent shot at coming out of this with his mind intact."

Peter shook Hank's hand and Elizabeth shouted out her relief and joy into Peter's chest.

* * *

Satchmo, despite his determination to stay, had been shooed from the sick room almost from the get-go. He took this as unspoken permission to go off by himself and grieve. He knew it was selfish to be sad, because the Cat was becoming a Man, and everything would finally act the way it smelled, but the Cat had been his good and true friend. Satchmo outranked the Cat, and the Cat was not even a Dog, but the Cat was still Pack, forever and ever, and now the Cat was gone. At the end, the Cat had said to him:

_I am not afraid to die. I had a good life with the Kind Man, the Good Food Woman, and you, Brother Dog. I love you. Take care of your people._

Satchmo would absolutely take care of his people. He had three of them, now. He could smell the third coming through loud and clear, even from his position downstairs. But he did wonder what sort of Man the third would be. Would he be good? More importantly, would he be as good a friend as the Cat?

* * *

On Thursday evening, after two more aborted attempts at waking up (both times he asked for the license number of the truck that hit him) Neal finally came around properly. Elizabeth was sitting against the headboard, pillows behind her back and under her arms while she cradled him because he seemed to rest easier that way. And when the residual pain of the withdrawal woke him up and he looked around him, she could tell that something was different. He was groggy but not goofy. The wheels were obviously turning upstairs.

"Hey there," she said, and his eyes immediately snapped to her face. "Are you with me?"

He blinked. He was unsettled and confused and he ached terribly, but he was warm and safe. He didn't know this woman's name. Yet, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he could trust her, because she loved him. "I … I know you … but I don't know you. Who … are you?"

"I'm Elizabeth. Elizabeth Burke."

"Hi, Elizabeth. I'm Neal." He furrowed his brow. "I … I should have a last name. Gimme a minute."

She blessed him with a gentle smile and put a hand on his cheek. "Don't stress out. You've got the important part down."

"Okay. Well, it's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you, too." Her smile turned a little watery for Hank and her husband, who were approaching the bed. "Guys, he remembered his first name."

Neal observed the two men. The taller one with the straight brown hair was giving off the same trustworthy, caring aura as Elizabeth, and Neal didn't mind at all that he sat down on the bed where Neal could see him. The shorter one with the stethoscope briefly presented a problem, but once he was introduced as a doctor, Neal realized it was all right and held out a trembling hand for a very civilized shake.

"Neal, I'm going to give you a quick reflex and gland check," Hank said. "Okay?"

"Do I have to let go of him?" Elizabeth asked.

Hank smiled. "No." He took Neal's pulse and made conversation. "You know where you are?"

Neal fixed his eyes on a few places and said, "I'm in bed. I'm in a house." Then he squinted slightly at the man who had yet to give his name (this time) and finished, "You're Peter, right?"

"Yeah," Peter's eyes crinkled warmly with hope. "Yeah, buddy, I'm Peter."

Neal tilted his face up in confusion and then back down. "Peter, why is Elizabeth crying?" Then … "Peter, why are _you_ crying? Are you two okay?"

"They're just really happy to see you," Hank said as he quickly flashed a pen light in Neal's eyes. "You've had a rough week, Mr. ..."

"Caffrey," Neal finished for him, and he knew in his bones he had it right. "That's my name. I'm Neal Caffrey."

* * *

Neal was finally awake, but he went under again pretty fast. After almost five years as an animal, functioning as a person again was exhausting. All day Friday he kept randomly falling asleep and Peter and Elizabeth had to wake him up a few times to feed him. But every time he woke, they would reorient him with gentle touch and quiet words. He was still achy and weak, but Elizabeth knew just where to press to make his muscles stop dancing, and Peter set him down in a warm bath of Epsom salts so he could soak for an hour. That helped a lot. Once he was clean and freshly clothed and back in bed, Satchmo was finally allowed to visit and Neal was thrilled to see him for reasons he couldn't begin to explain. He petted the dog and nodded off in the middle of having his face licked.

On Friday evening, Hank declared their week-long project a success and gave the all clear. While Neal was napping, he disconnected him from the IVs, packed up all his equipment, and left for the Hamptons. He tried to slip out quietly, because he was rather bashful at heart and not too keen on extra attention, but Elizabeth refused to let him just sneak out the back without a proper goodbye. (He'd been staying with them all week at her insistence.) She stuffed his duffel bag with clothes, neatly folded and fresh from the dryer, and a small pouch of extra toiletries. Once the bag was on his shoulder, she handed him a small cooler of food in case he got hungry on the road and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He promised he'd call and check in, Peter promised they'd call if they needed anything, and off he went.

And on Saturday morning, after drinking something chocolaty that Elizabeth had concocted in the blender, Neal was alert and remembering a lot more about his former life. So they propped him up in bed and talked. His thoughts had coalesced into questions that needed answers.

"It's like I have this giant hole in my memory," he explained. "I've been thinking back, and it's just this total blank after…" He sighed. "Okay. I don't want to alarm you two, but I was arrested, and I went to prison."

To Neal's surprise, they didn't balk at the idea of having someone they'd nursed for a week turn up with a rap sheet. Instead, Peter asked, "Do you remember why you were arrested?"

Neal shook his head. "I know I pretended to be a lot of different people, and I made a lot of money." He stopped suddenly and looked at Peter. "Was I an actor? Wait, no, that can't be right. Actors don't make any money. I must have done something else."

"Here's an easy question," Elizabeth said. "Do you know what you like to do?"

"Draw." Neal said this without hesitation. "I love drawing, and painting, and sculpting. I love art, I think."

They both smiled and nodded. "All right, that was a big hint," Peter said. "Do you have any idea why you went to prison now?"

Neal pursed his lips as he struggled to connect the dots. "Did I draw something illegal?"

"Pretty much," Peter said. "You forged a very valuable bond."

Neal looked genuinely surprised. "Huh. Was it any good?"

Peter laughed. "Yes, it was very good. So you went to prison, and …"

"Well, I don't remember anything after getting into my uniform. It's bizarre. It's like my memory just stops right there. I don't know how long I was in, or how I got to your house." He looked from Peter to Elizabeth. "I can trust you two to tell me the truth, right? What happened to me?"

Peter glanced hopefully at his wife.

No dice. "You tell him," she said.

He frowned and sighed; delivering bad news sensitively wasn't exactly his forte. He just ripped off the band-aid and hoped for the best. "They shut down your brain and pumped you full of drugs that made you think you were a cat. You spent four years incarcerated that way."

Neal's expression of white-faced shock was priceless. "You're making that up."

"Wish I were." The look in his wife's eyes promised death later, but Peter only shrugged. "What do you want, Elle? I'm not going to lie to him, and I'm not going to sugarcoat it."

On the one hand, Neal appreciated this information. On the other, he kind of wanted to throw up. He did his best to steady himself and breathe through his nose.

"As to how you got to our house, we adopted you." Peter shrugged. "You lived with us for seven months."

There was a moment of silence as Neal shook his head and Elizabeth took his hand.

"I can't believe this," he said finally. "Was I at least a big cat, like a lion or something?"

"Nope," Peter said. "House cat. Although, to give you credit, you were a pretty fearsome hunter. I mean, you never caught anything, but you tried real hard."

This failed to make Neal feel better. Elizabeth jumped in. "You really were a wonderful pet. You crawled into our laps all the time and you ran around with our dog. You cuddled and played, and you were so loving and affectionate… I'm not saying this to embarrass you, Neal."

Too late. Neal threw himself back against his pillows and groaned. "Somebody shoot me."

Peter smirked. "I thought you didn't like guns." When Neal looked at him, he shrugged. "It's all over your file. You have … um … quite an extensive one."

Neal's look turned calculating. He was starting to wonder about Peter. For the moment, he shelved it. "Well, you're right. I don't like guns. Makes killing too easy, but the worst part's the sound. It's all right if I have to fire a weapon because I know the shot's coming, but there's just something about a sudden gunshot that I can't tolerate."

"What do you do if there's gunfire?" Peter asked.

Neal raised an eyebrow. "I get the hell out of there, that's what I do."

Peter and Elizabeth smiled at each other, remembering that banging door the day they brought Neal home. And to think, they'd thought it was the _cat_ that had caused his reaction.

* * *

They had a few more conversations on Saturday, and by Sunday afternoon, Neal was up to speed on most of the details of Peter and Elizabeth's life. His memory had come back too, and now that he was reacquainted with himself, he remembered every detail of why he'd been imprisoned. As he admitted his actual profession to Peter he couldn't stop a wince.

"I'm a con artist," he said, flushing in embarrassment and nervously fingering the lapel of his pajama top. "Career criminal."

"I know that," said Peter. "You know _how_ I know that? I'm an FBI agent."

Neal opened and shut his mouth a few times, but nothing came out. "Ah," he said finally. "Well, this is awkward." A thought startled him. "You're not going to put me back in prison, right? I mean, just because I don't remember it, that doesn't mean I want to go back."

Peter hastened to reassure him. "No no no, I'm not putting you back in prison. Well, unless you do something stupid, in which case, you know, I'll have to." Neal shrugged. The doorbell rang downstairs, and Peter started to fuss over him a little bit, pulling him up into a higher sitting pose and packing the pillows behind him. "Come on, let's get you ready."

"For what?" Neal heard a jumble of voices downstairs, but nothing distinct.

Peter's eyes danced as he smiled. "Guests. You have a visitor."

Neal was hoping for more information, but all Peter did was pack the covers in at his waist while several sets of feet clunked up the stairs.

"You can let go of my arm, Mrs. Suit. I'm temporarily klutzy, not permanently crippled. Is he in there?"

Neal stiffened. He'd know that pleasantly nasal tone anywhere. Was it? Could it be? He could remember his "wipe" in prison with full clarity now, and his last terrified thought before the procedure had been that his best friend was about to be just as lost to him as his mind.

The door opened, and Neal stared. "Haversham" stopped in the doorway and stared back. He looked well taken care of, dressed colorfully in layers under a bomber jacket. He was leaning on a cane and he was tired, but he was there.

"Mozzie." Neal said with emotion. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

Mozzie just stumbled over to the bed, sat down and put his hands on Neal's shoulders, as though trying to make sure he was real. "The bastards told me you were dead."

Neal gave him the ghost of a smile. "Not yet. Thanks for coming."

Mozzie's face was crumpling, and he was choking up. "What was I gonna do? Not come?"

And he threw his arms around Neal and quietly lost it into the pillows. Neal managed to bring his arms up a little and hug his friend back. Elizabeth slipped in along with an elegantly dressed woman that Neal didn't know, and he kind of wanted to tell them all to get out, but since Mozzie was well beyond caring, he stayed quiet. Finally, the other man pulled himself together and began to clean his glasses.

"Mozzie, what happened to you? How did you find me?"

"I got pinched, and they wiped my mind. I almost died a dog, but I got lucky because June helped me out. She told me that I treed this guy in the park – sorry about that, by the way – and he was owned by her new friends the Burkes, and they were releasing him. When she said your name ... I kept hoping they'd lied to me. I had to know. I'm glad she brought me over."

The lady with the beautiful tawny skin and the furry shoulder wrap waved at him. Neal gave her a little wave back.

"Me, too." Neal wanted dearly to reminisce without witnesses, but that wasn't happening and he didn't know how long Mozzie was going to stay anyway, or how long he could hold out without falling asleep, so he didn't waste any time. "Hey, Moz? Where's Kate?"

Mozzie's face fell and he muttered "Oh, God." He steeled himself. "Look, Neal, when they animalized you, she left. She figured you were done for. _I_ was going to take you home when you were released, but I got arrested about a year before you were due to be let out, and when I asked, they said you'd gone crazy and they'd euthanized you." He visibly swallowed his disgust and went on. "Anyway. There's no easy way to say this, but Kate shacked up with Mathew Keller. And about two years ago, she pulled off this brilliant heist that he planned." Neal winced because Peter was _right there_ but Mozzie was undeterred. "She lifted a music box. It was that famous amber one that belonged to Catherine the Great. Anyway, she had to rappel off a roof to get away with the goods, and the rope broke. She fell eight stories onto solid concrete. It was such a stupid, terrible accident. … I'm so sorry, man."

Neal didn't take the news well. Pain blossomed in his chest as he realized that he could have won Kate back from Keller, but there was no way to win her back from death, and he was still so raw, so freshly human, that he wasn't up to the emotional control he'd exercised for so long as a con man. He shuddered as Mozzie held him. By the time he caught up to the fact that he was crying, he was dimly aware of another set of arms enfolding him and someone saying "Shh" in his ear. It was a few minutes before he was able to look up. Peter had taken him from Mozzie.

"I'm sorry." He was scattered and broken, loose plywood in a tornado. "It's just … she was … I loved … we were … I wanted – _nyeow_!"

The squeaky kitty-cat noise startled everyone, especially Neal, who blinked in horror and stared at Peter. Peter pulled him close again and rocked him a little, mumbling assurances. They stayed this way for a bit and Neal tried to relax and breathe, but after a few seconds, he furrowed his brow.

"Are you … petting me?"

Peter pulled back like he'd been burned. "I'm so sorry."

Neal nestled against him again and sniffled. "It's all right. I … I like it." And those three words turned him upside-down again. "This is so messed up. What is _wrong_ with me?"

"Hey," Peter said, catching his gaze. "There's nothing wrong with you, okay?"

Neal was too upset to argue and a few minutes later he conked out again. They all worked together in silence to lay him down and tuck him in, and hastily convened downstairs; Elle and June were worried and Peter looked furious.

Mozzie apologized immediately from his seat on the couch. "I swear I wasn't trying to set him off. But you have to understand, Neal thought he and Kate Moreau were meant to be. You know, he's a con artist and she was a thief…" When Peter looked at him quizzically, he huffed. "What, I gotta spell this out? He wanted to steal a house for her and make little baby criminals. He had to know what happened to her."

This brought Peter up short, but not for long. "Six days ago he was having seizures. He's barely functioning right now. He wasn't ready for news like that."

Mozzie bowed his head. "I know. I'm sorry. But he _did_ ask. Just, please, don't shut me out."

June stepped in. "Peter, I told him what you and Elizabeth are to Neal now. But you must understand, before it was you, it was Mozzie. He's known Neal for a very long time."

"Since he was eighteen," Mozzie said. "When they told me he was dead, I just…" He shook his head and couldn't go on. June put an arm around him.

Elizabeth turned her best pleading eyes on Peter, and June gave him a small smile. She wasn't just here because Mozzie had dragged her; she was genuinely interested in Neal's welfare, too. Peter just sighed. Team Neal was expanding whether he liked it or not.

* * *

Kate's death was a setback. Granted, Neal's reaction wasn't as awful as it could have been if she'd died in front of him or something, and his grief was tempered by his anger because in the end she hadn't loved him enough to stick around, but the shock and the pain still did him in. He spent the next two days terribly depressed and ill. It wasn't until Wednesday that he started to come out of it, and it wasn't until Thursday that he finally felt hungry.

His hand-eye coordination and fine motor control weren't quite back on-line and because of some balance issues he wasn't allowed out of bed too much, so on Thursday morning, with a drop cloth spread over the comforter and a small table in his lap, he was eating breakfast and talking to Peter. Elizabeth first had to confirm that he wasn't still getting urges to eat nonsense. In that spirit, she'd offered him a cold hot dog and a lump of applesauce, and when Neal said, "That's not breakfast," she smiled in relief and handed him a plate of French toast along with a rubber handled fork. He ate like an idiot and made a total mess, but most of it made it into his mouth and Peter's only comment was to assure him that it would be better at lunch, and better at dinner, and better tomorrow.

"So, when you recover, what do you want to do?" Peter asked. "Technically you're a free man. You can go anywhere, do anything. Are you going to stay, or leave?"

Neal carefully sipped his orange juice. It sounded as though Peter knew what he wanted. "Well, I'm thinking leaving might be for the best," Neal said, trying to hide how much he didn't want to go. "You get to go back to your life, I get to have one of my own."

And Peter realized he'd said that completely wrong. "Neal, you already have one. Right here. I wasn't throwing you out. You're welcome to stay, if you want to."

Neal brightened. "Really?"

"Really. So what would you do?"

"Well, I don't know. Obviously, crime is out of the question but … Peter, I'm good at it. Let's face it, you guys didn't catch me for years. ... Sorry," he added when Peter glared. The FBI's botched investigation of him was still a sore point.

"It's okay. You're right. You _are_ good at crime." Peter pretended to think, when in reality he'd been mulling this over for weeks, fantasizing about this conversation. "How about consulting for the Bureau? You could help us out. Do some good. Maybe make up for all the not-so-good you've done in the past. Besides, you probably have insights no one else does. And you'd get a stipend. It's not much, but it's something."

Neal wasn't objecting so far. "So, what, I fill out an application? Is there an interview? How does this work?"

Peter sighed. "That's the downside. Hughes … well, when we work with people like you, he doesn't like any kind of arrangement that isn't airtight. And considering your past, I'm thinking that the only way we'd be able to get you this job would be to arrest you and officially put you in FBI custody. You'd never go back to prison, don't worry about that, but you'd be ours for at least three years. It's kind of like parole."

The response he expected, something along the lines of "That's insane, I did my time," or "What's wrong with you guys," didn't come. Instead Neal asked, "What if I escape? I'm pretty good at that, too."

"First off, if you run, I'll catch you. And second … hold on." Peter left and quickly returned with a large photograph, which he handed to Neal and tapped with his finger for emphasis. "Tracking anklet. These new ones are tamper-proof. Never been skipped on."

Neal looked skeptical. "There's always a first time."

"That wasn't a challenge, Neal."

"Oh. Well, say I say yes. Is it long hours?"

"Sometimes." Peter realized the fish was on the hook and ruthlessly squashed his excitement, lest he jinx this.

"Bad coffee?"

"I always bring a thermos from home. I'm sure Elle wouldn't mind giving you one, too."

"Hmm. … You'll be there?"

Peter smiled. "Of course." He sat down at the bedside again. "So, what do you think? You want to try this?"

Neal took another sip of his juice. Peter had told him all sorts of stories about how he'd helped out around the office as a cat, and spoken to him about Cruz, Jones, and Hughes. "You know, I know I should be completely freaked out and humiliated by the idea of going back there, but … I want to go. I keep getting the sense that it was _fun_, of all things." Then something occurred to him and the glance he turned on Peter was shy and vulnerable. "Nobody from the office hates me or anything, right?"

Peter gave the question some thought. "Well, there's Ruiz in Organized Crime, but he hates everybody, so don't take it personally. Other than that, you're good." Then he narrowed his eyes. "And you're really okay with an anklet."

Neal set the picture down. "Peter, I was on a leash for seven months. I think I can handle some blinking jewelry."

* * *

**A/N:** The title of this chapter was shamelessly stolen from Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - 2007), the grandmaster of modern American satire. I hope he doesn't mind.

**Bonus Bonus Book Club Question:** Did Mozzie do the right thing by telling Neal about Kate? Discuss.

Forward to the finale! (-:


	7. Coda

Here's a bit of trivia. The Italian word "coda" describes any concluding event or summation of an artistic endeavor, like the final melodic tag in a piece of music, or the last little bit of a work of literature.

In English, it translates as "tail."

* * *

_2010._

On the morning of July 13th, Neal removed his fedora as he padded into the office behind Peter. He looked dapper and sharp in a gray Devore with a blue pocket square. It was one of his favorites from June's collection. She'd shown up at the Burkes' house in early May with several garment bags full of her husband Byron's old suits insisting that Neal take them because they fit so well. It didn't hurt that they were really beautiful clothes. He was happy to wear them.

He checked his pant leg and flapped it out so it would settle properly and cover his anklet. Back in April, when he was still stuck in bed, Hughes, Cruz, Jones and two U.S. Marshals had stopped by the house to finalize the paperwork and make all the arrangements for his employment with the FBI. It was a very peaceful arrest. There were no handcuffs involved, only signatures and questions. The Marshals put the anklet on, tipped their hats and took off, and Neal got a chance to "meet" Peter's cohorts at the FBI, even though they were already familiar with him. It amused him a little to watch them readjust their perceptions, and he found himself looking forward to collaborating with them. It appeared the feeling was mutual.

The White Collar office was busy and he said hello to a few coworkers as he followed Peter into the conference room; he'd been working here since mid-May with great success, and almost everyone around him had come to respect him as a person, in spite of being introduced to him as a cat. It took them awhile to dispense with the customary ribbing and embarrassing stories, and a saucer or two of milk had appeared on his desk in the bullpen, but he just poured it into his coffee, stayed well clear of Ruiz, made conversation and did good work.

His only worry was the new agent on Peter's team. He just hoped she wasn't a hard-ass, and that she wouldn't hold his past against him too much. Her name was Diana Barrigan and she was coming in from D.C. tomorrow to replace Cruz, who had just transferred out to Las Vegas to be near her mother. She'd departed last week with warm goodbyes for everyone, but Jones had looked so depressed at her leaving that she bequeathed him her fish … and gave him her new number. He was doing fine now.

Neal looked through the glass walls of the conference room as he and Peter headed up the stairs; Hughes was prowling back and forth at the head of the table while Jones and a handful of other agents seated themselves and got ready for the day's dispatch. Peter was quickly handed a file and directed to interview a wealthy investment banker who'd been burglarized last night (it was a Matisse). Without even thinking about it, he handed the file to Neal for perusal and they left the office, strides matching, to take care of it.

As they drove down a historic tree-lined street, Neal realized they were within walking distance of June's house. He quietly started plotting but was distracted for a few hours by the interview and initial overview of the crime scene. Neal pointed Peter towards a lot of helpful information and a few possible leads, and it was lunchtime when they finished. Peter sniffed the air a little.

"I want a hot dog," Peter said. "You hungry?"

"More in the mood to walk than eat," Neal replied. The lie was as smooth as ever. "Actually, there's this amazing modern art gallery a few blocks from here that I've been dying to visit. You mind if I go over there for a bit and then meet you back at headquarters?"

It was the perfect cover. Peter hated modern art, and no amount of Neal calling him a philistine would change that. He could slip away, go visit June, and be back at headquarters with no one the wiser. Unfortunately, Peter could read him like a book.

"Please," Peter said. He sounded almost amused. "There's no art gallery, you're starving, and the only reason you're trying to weasel out of hot dogs with me is because you want to visit June on company time. Alone." He raised his eyebrows like _tell me I'm wrong_.

Neal had to admit it; Peter Burke was good. He had the grace to look ashamed. "Yeah," he said, and shrugged. There was no point denying it. "Is it okay?"

Peter let him dangle for a moment and then smirked. "Yeah, it's okay. Come on. I saw a cart a block that way." Neal nodded and followed. "Tell June hello for me. Oh, and by the way, if your rat packy ass isn't back at headquarters by two, I'm coming after you."

"All right." Then … "Rat packy?"

"Two o'clock."

"Got it."

Fully loaded hot dogs in hand, Neal and Peter parted ways. The agent headed for his car and the ex-con continued in the same direction until he reached June's mansion. He trotted up the steps and rang the bell, and managed two bites before the door opened, revealing Mozzie. His follicle-challenged friend looked rather harried and exasperated.

"Oh, for… Come on in."

Neal took off his hat and stepped inside. "Everything all right?"

"Well, Max isn't doing so well, but otherwise, yeah, we're okay," Mozzie said as he backed up into the hall, inviting Neal to follow. "He's finally awake for real, but I think he caught something in the middle of the withdrawal. He can't stop coughing, and he's bringing stuff up."

Neal made a face as they tromped up the grand staircase to the second floor. He took another bite of his hot dog at the top. "That's not good. He should get antibiotics. Need me to forge a scrip?"

Mozzie smirked as he opened the door to the upstairs guest suite. "No need. One of Hank's friends is helping us out on this one. He handled it. Elsie went out to pick up his medicine. I thought that was her at the door. That's why I came down." He gestured inside. "After you."

Neal went in and looked around, rather impressed. At June's request, Mozzie had taken over the spacious rooms; he'd become a full partner in her rescue and release operation. Since he could provide full-time live-in help, June was now able to take on more "boarders" at once, and currently they had three cons recovering in the mansion's other bedrooms. Mozzie had also explained to June that while he owed her for the rest of his life, and say anything, it was hers, living as a law abiding citizen was impossible for him. He had contacts to maintain, and things to do. She completely understood. But she also begged him to be careful. He promised to keep her and her house out of whatever business he got himself mixed up in, and so far, things were working out.

There was nothing to do until Elsie came back with Max's medication, so Mozzie started to rummage around in the refrigerator. "Want anything? I've got water, juice, wine, soda…"

"Nah, I'm good."

Neal wandered around with a distracted air as he demolished his hot dog. A nice chess set decorated the dining table and a sturdy oak bookshelf was stuffed to the gills with great works of literature and technical manuals. Beyond that, Mozzie's decorating choices tended towards the industrial and eccentric. But Neal was a teeny bit envious of the place's generous open floor plan, not to mention the attached stone terrace with an incredible view of Manhattan. The guest room at Peter and Elizabeth's house was very comfortable and unconditionally his until he found himself an apartment, but still, these digs were really nice.

As he swallowed his last bite of hot dog, he saw that Mozzie had his back to him. There was no better time. He pulled a fat envelope out of his inside jacket pocket. (A few days ago he'd seen it in the bottom of a drawer in Peter's office. Curiosity got the better of him because it said _Neal_, so he liberated it.) He walked through the glass doors to the balcony, plopped himself down at the little wrought-iron table, and carefully ran a finger under the flap. Soon he was lost in the contents. Mozzie came up behind him silently, holding two glasses of orange juice despite what Neal had said, saw what had his friend so engrossed, and gave himself away with a snort.

Neal flushed and glared. "What?"

"When were those taken?"

"When do you think?"

The envelope was full of pictures, a half-inch high stack of 4x6's that were probably developed at Walgreens. Obviously, these would never be going in a photo album, and Peter hadn't known what to do with them, so he'd kept them in his desk at work.

The picture Neal held was an extreme close-up of his eye and nose, because he was sniffing curiously at the camera. Another was a full shot taken from a high angle; he was sitting on his haunches like an animal and staring up at the lens, hypnotized. The picture was slightly blurry and while his irises were clear blue, his pupils were little red dots. Mozzie set their drinks down, took a seat, snapped up some of the pictures Neal had already looked at, and tried to hide his grin at the one on top of his pile. It was a sad attempt at a family portrait. Peter was leaning over trying to grab Satchmo's collar as the lab wandered away, and Elizabeth, halfway off the couch, was grabbing a struggling Neal by the back of his sweater because he was trying to escape, too.

Mozzie didn't stop laughing for a good minute. Soon Neal was laughing with him. It was absurd. It was a life that he didn't remember, a life that he'd had to have explained to him, and seeing it was even wackier than hearing about it. Messy mealtime photos intermingled with shots of him dressed smartly for work with Peter. In one picture he was silhouetted against the back window, pawing at the glass as some birds took flight outside. There were photos of him sleeping in a laundry basket and napping next to Satchmo. There was even a shot of him in the shower, in a full crouch on the tile, scrunching his face up against the pounding spray and trying to clean himself with his cupped hands. A bit of someone else's bare leg – it looked like Elle's – was in the frame. Thankfully, the shot cut out just above anything offensive.

"Peter said he and Elizabeth used to take me in the shower with them. Can you believe that?" Neal said, showing Mozzie the picture.

"Well, you had no shame, and it probably lowered their water bill," Mozzie said sensibly.

Neal was getting to the end of the stack. He leafed through a few blurry offerings of Peter's thumb and two showing the top of Elizabeth's head, a couple of random shots of their tiny garden out back – really, he'd have to show Peter how to take a proper picture, because this was _crap_ – and then he saw the last shot and his criticism slammed to a halt.

Elizabeth, haloed by the warm light seeping in through the curtains, was sitting on the couch with him in her arms. She faced the camera. Because he was basically in her lap and resting his chin on her shoulder, he faced away. Their two heads were gently knocked together, and he liked the stark contrast of her soft, peachy face next to his rich brown hair. The gray sweats he wore in the picture were probably boxed up somewhere with all of his old cat toys; from what Peter had told him, he'd worn those things down to the weave. His sweatshirt was riding up, exposing his lumbar. One of Elizabeth's small hands cupped the back of his head, making little furrows in the short waves there, and she had her other arm around his ribs. Her eyes were closed.

Neal felt a lump rise in his throat as he remembered one of their conversations. She'd told him that when he wasn't feeling too wiggly, he really enjoyed being touched and held. Perhaps he hadn't been given enough affection growing up, she teased. His reply was very careful and academic: statistically speaking, most people who made a career out of stealing stuff from other people didn't have happy, stable childhoods. She left the topic alone after that. But she'd never stopped touching him – a random hug here, a gentle swat on the arm there, a tweak of the nose if he was being silly – and he'd never objected. He never would.

"Oh man, these are priceless," Mozzie said, interrupting his thoughts. "Wanna burn 'em?"

"What? No! No, we can't just burn these. They're Peter's. The only thing I don't understand is why he kept them. I mean, look at them. They're terrible."

Again, it was a good cover, but Mozzie knew Neal, and he just smiled. His own relationship with June was four fathoms deep and incredibly complicated, and the longer he stayed with her, the stronger it made them both. He knew full well why Peter had kept those pictures in his desk.

"Well, technique carries a lot of weight in photography. But the subject matters, too."

* * *

_2013._

The day before Neal's birthday was national "Bring Your Pet to Work Day," and the Bureau had been participating since 2005. Neal liked it. Peter always brought Satchmo and it was fun to see what Jones showed up with, because he would inevitably bring something interesting from the local shelter where he volunteered. Neal tipped his hat to Diana as he entered the office and made his way over to his desk. Out of habit, he checked his pant leg before realizing that he didn't need to anymore.

After three years with the FBI the anklet was finally off (there had been a small party to celebrate) and he had stayed on in a consulting position. Hughes was trying to make him permanent and salaried. An agreement was slowly taking shape, but between the departmental infighting and the red tape headaches, Hughes despaired of Neal getting a contract before the decade was out. Until something official happened, he had his orders to just "keep on keepin' on," combining his consulting paycheck with the small profit he made selling his own paintings, because he was getting more and more commissions these days, and his part-time work as an assistant buyer for the Dettweiler downtown. It was right up his alley; the gallery's main collecting interest was the late European Post-Impressionist movement. He still took the subway because that sleek gray Maserati in the window was just _slightly_ out of reach, and he brown bagged it to the office most days, but he was now the proud owner of a nice two-bedroom apartment in SoHo. While he'd converted one bedroom into a private art studio, he preferred to sketch in a nearby park, and did so whenever the weather cooperated. He found excuses to entertain the Burkes at least three times a month and they often had him over to their house for dinner.

Diana smiled in response to Neal's hat-tip. She had turned out to be beautiful, smart, half Jamaican and all lesbian, which sort of put the kibosh on what a man naturally wanted when meeting a gorgeous woman, but they had become very good friends nonetheless. Over the past three years she'd been a real asset to Peter's team, and she was in this for the long haul.

As for today's social holiday, Neal was very pleased to see that not a single person had shown up with a peet. The grassroots movement to free convicts and stop making more of them was slowly but surely taking hold. After a few hours of paperwork interrupted by various squawks and other noises, he decided to go for it, because it was fun to rile up the office on occasion and he had the perfect excuse.

"Excuse me, everybody?" He stood up on his chair and got the attention of the bullpen. "Hi. Okay, look, there's no need to be alarmed," he said with splayed hands, "But I seem to have lost my boa constrictor. Has anybody seen Chester?"

Mass panic ensued. People started searching under their desks. One of the interns actually ran out the door screaming and Diana yanked Neal down to ground level.

"You don't have any pets, Caffrey."

"Yeah, but they don't know that," Neal replied through a killer smile.

Diana rolled her eyes and Jones wandered in to watch the chaos, cradling a kitten in one arm and a dangerously wobbly stack of files in the other. Neal didn't want Jones to drop his stuff, so he took the kitten while the agent set everything down. The gray, sandwich-sized ball of fluff made a tiny "nyee!" noise at Neal and its wide eyes were even bluer than his.

"You're such a jackass," Diana said, but she couldn't stop a smirk as a hapless junior agent, eyes on his feet and searching for a non-existent snake, smacked his head into a filing cabinet drawer that someone had left open.

"Oh, come on. Somebody had to do it, so why not me? It was destiny. It was … _HEP-choo_!"

Neal blinked in the wake of his outburst and the kitten looked vaguely offended. Jones came back over with his arms out. Neal immediately handed the thing over. Two years ago, while working a case with Peter, he'd gotten stuck in a small poorly-ventilated room with a cat and discovered he was allergic. The irony was not lost on him.

Jones laughed as he took the kitten back from Neal. "Muffin's a shedder. Sorry, man."

"S'okay." He whipped out a handkerchief from his pocket and honked into it.

"Oh! Did de itty bitty kitty make you sneeze?" Diana said this like she was talking to a five-year-old.

Neal blew his nose again and glared at her.

"I heard Sanders was coming in today," Jones said to diffuse things. "Wonder how he's doing."

Diana shrugged. "It's been two years. If he's not okay by now…"

The New York White Collar office had been instrumental in the disbanding of CAP back in 2011, because the organization was a total scam. The leadership had been arrested, but before their downfall they'd managed to turn a tidy profit by luring in a lot of innocents with false promises and taking a lot of money.

Agent Sanders, to his everlasting humiliation and grief, had been one of their patsies. He knew that freeing Tweety was the morally upright thing to do, so he plunked down the two thousand dollars, rode along on hope and faith, and failed to notice that CAP had actually sent him a borderline incompetent med student with a dull scalpel and a cache of useless drugs. Tweety didn't survive the withdrawal.

But Sanders was doing a lot better these days. After a quick meeting with Hughes, he came back out into the bullpen, said hello to Neal and Diana, and asked Jones about the local shelter.

He wanted to know if they had any birds.

The next day, Neal put his hat down on a corner of his very messy desk, hung his suit jacket neatly on the back of his chair as usual, and noticed that there was a large cooler on the floor of his work station. Diana was looking at him steadily, as was Jones. After a wary look at both of them, he hefted up the heavy cooler and plunked it down on top of all his paperwork. Inside was a whole 10-pound salmon, head and tail included, buried in ice.

Apparently somebody couldn't resist a dig. (This happened every year.)

Peter wandered over, looked into the cooler, and snickered. Neal wasn't so amused. "What?"

"Who gave you a salmon?"

He shrugged. "Someone with expensive tastes, I guess. This is a big fish."

"What are you gonna do with it?"

Neal looked at Peter like he was nuts, and spoke slowly. "Eat it." Peter grinned. "Not all at once. And _yes_, smart aleck, I'm going to cook it first. You..." Then it dawned on him, and he shoved Peter. Diana and Jones were giggling now. Neal licked his lips. "You know, it's times like this when you really hurt 'teh kitteh's' feelings." He crossed his arms and said this with great dignity and pathos. "Don't cross 'teh kitteh,' Peter. You won't like what happens."

The stare-down didn't last very long; Peter was amused rather than afraid. "Look, just bring it over tonight, Garfield. You can use our oven. I promised Elle dinner in honor of your birthday."

"Peter, I know the concept of gift-giving is difficult for you, but I'm not your personal chef, and I'm not making my own birthday dinner. That's stupid."

Peter snorted. "Oh, please. We all know that you like to cook, and I'd rather not burn the house down in the attempt, so just show up, all right?"

Neal was secretly amused. He did enjoy entertaining, and it wasn't often that Peter the Great admitted to any sort of fallibility, but he had to keep up appearances. He gave a gusty sigh. "Fine. But I get to bring Mozzie and June, and Barrigan and Jones are coming too." When Peter raised an eyebrow he added, "This thing will feed a lot of people, trust me. How's six o'clock?"

Peter nodded. "Six is perfect. I'll bring the wine and buy the cake."

"That's more like it," Neal said.

Peter just smiled and walked off towards his office. Neal set the cooler back down next to his disaster area of a desk. If he was going to make any headway on this mortgage fraud case, the mess had to go. He started by making a pile of correspondence from Al, who was supervising his work on restoring a large mural for a youth organization up in Harlem, and made a mental note to call him. He stacked up the files that he'd borrowed and had yet to return to Records, which cleared more space, and when he swept all his various doodles on napkins and scratch paper into the circular file, it was looking a lot better. Once he was comfortably slouched in the chair with one well-leathered heel solidly on his desk, he brought his other leg up, crossed his ankles, and settled down to examine the evidence.

* * *

_2020._

On April 2, 2014, the ASPCA also officially declared itself the ASPCP (the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Prisoners) and took up the cause of those who were advocating for Responsible Release. The organization aggressively recruited public figures and wealthy donors to get involved in the campaign. It was a three-pronged mission: free existing animalized convicts, declare the animalization process illegal, and overturn laws that reduced human beings to property. It went about this while continuing to publicly distance itself from radical groups like CLF and PET-P, and alerting the public to scams like CAP.

Once it had the support of the American Humane Society and countless small non-profits, the fight against keeping peets went national. It was quickly dubbed the Ex Con Movement, or ECM, in the press. Neal Caffrey was a major part of the battle's opening salvo. After speaking to his coworkers, friends, and business associates and getting their full support and blessing, he overcame his reluctance to be in the public spotlight and allowed 60 Minutes to do a piece on him. The sympathetic segment began with his work at the Dettweiler gallery, moved on to his commissioned paintings and successful consulting work with the FBI, and finally revealed his shocking story. It garnered a record-breaking audience response and a Pulitzer nomination.

Also instrumental in the change in public sentiment were powerful advertising campaigns featuring other former convicts. (One ex-con who also happened to be a male model quite famously posed for a print ad in nothing but handcuffs, under the slogan "I Might Be a Convict, But I'm All Man.") The efforts of the coordinating animal and human-rights organizations caused a nationwide storm of controversy over the perverse nature of this American habit. There were loud debates on pundit shows and the issue perennially popped up on the TV news networks. The CBS evening news joined the fray by giving it coverage at least once a month, and the issue eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court. In April of 2018, when the ruling finally came down and the New York Times front page shouted **ANIMALIZED CONVICTS ARE NO MORE – 'PEET' OWNERSHIP ABOLISHED**, millions of letters of thanks poured into the ASPCA's corporate headquarters.

One of these letters has been framed and remains on the wall of the reception area for the reading pleasure of visitors. It begins rather cheekily with _Dear ASPCA_, but goes on to eloquently thank the organization for its support of convicts everywhere. The rest is reprinted here.

_Tireless ECM headliners and major convict-rights activists deserve praise for their steadfast defiance of nonsensical laws and their constant media presence. But as much as the frontrunners have supported this movement, we should honor the soldiers on the ground. We need to remember people like Dr. Hank Lawson, who lost his job because he had the audacity to treat a convict like a person, and in 2015 founded Doctors for Freedom, the medical network that provides support to Responsible Release programs across the country. We need to laud the tireless, fearless, peerless June Waters, who began freeing convicts responsibly before anyone was on her side about it. She's looking forward to retiring. _

_And while there have been many heroes recognized in this battle for human rights, I would like to recognize two more. In September of 2009, Peter and Elizabeth Burke brought home a frightened, skinny prisoner from Rikers Island. With love, support, care and patience, they got him healthy, gave him strength, set him free, and saved his life. I will be forever grateful to them for this second chance. So, to those of you who fight the good fight, fight on and know that you make a difference._

_XOXO,_

_Neal._

**THE END

* * *

**

Final Notes

**1.** A must-watch YouTube video, created for www . TheShelterPetProject . org, is called, no joke, "White Collar." If you are thinking about adopting a pet, this site will match you up with shelter pets in your area based on compatibility. It also offers lots of tips for keeping your new friend happy and healthy.

**2.** In case the thrust of this tale is still unclear, it started with a comment in a review to one of my other stories likening Neal to a house cat. I wondered what would happen if Neal _acted_ like a house cat, and the idea made me laugh so hard that I wrote it down. The expression "pet convict" prompted the equally nutty concept of convicts not only making good pets, but being almost as common as cats or dogs. I started scribbling with no idea of where I was going. In eight pages this went from a sight gag to a layered joke to a dystopian version of modern America which I then had to somehow explain. I poked fun at anything I could reach, and with a little luck I made the following points: we need to treat each other better, compassion is heroic, and love wins.

**3.** I want to thank all the reviewers and particularly my cheering section (you know who you are!) whose support kept me going all the way to the finish line. I just have one small request of the general readership. In your comments, and I hope you do comment, please don't just type "Your stupid cat story is demented bullshit" and take off. I'm not arguing about word choice, here. My stupid cat story _is_ demented bullshit. But hopefully it made you laugh, and if it eventually took on a deeper meaning for you ... that's a home run, baby. All other concrit is of course very welcome. If you spot something weird(er), by all means, speak up.

It's been a blast to write this crazy thing. I will try to crank out another WC story when I get some time. And hey, I gave Neal his mind back in time for the new season! Woo hoo! S2 launches Tuesday, July 13th, at 9/8 Central on USA. So set your DVR, or in the words of Brad from the boiler room episode, clear your calendar. *fist bump*

Peace out, y'all. (-;

Kiki


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